Spelling test for Class 1 to 10

Spelling improves through short, frequent testing and almost not at all through copying. Ten words daily will beat twenty-two words weekly, and both will beat writing each word ten times in a row, which stops being useful after the second copy because the child has stopped looking at the word and started copying the shape.

Use look, cover, write, check

For each word your child missed: let them look at it properly, cover it, write it from memory, then uncover and check. If it is wrong, do it again straight away. If it is right, come back to it tomorrow. Three correct writes on three separate days will normally fix a word for good, and that is a smaller amount of work than most spelling homework.

Pick the class that fits, not the class they are in

If your child is in Class 5 and scoring under half on the Class 5 list, drop to Class 4. Nothing is lost. A list that is too hard produces a page of red, and the lesson a child takes from a page of red is not about spelling. Move back up when they are getting fifteen or more comfortably.

What spelling looks like at each stage

Class 1 and 2 is phonetic. A child who can hear the sounds in a word can usually spell it, and the words that break the rules - said, come, they, was - simply have to be known by sight. If this stage is not working, the problem is almost always phonics rather than spelling.

Class 3 and 4 is where spelling stops being fair. Silent letters arrive - castle, island, listen, answer - and so do the endings that all sound the same. This is the stage most children need genuine practice rather than instinct, and where the British and American forms start to matter.

Class 5 to 7 brings the long words a child uses in writing but has never had to spell: necessary, beginning, definitely, embarrass. Almost all of these are double-letter traps. Teaching the pattern rather than the word pays off, because the same trap recurs a hundred times.

Class 8 to 10 is exam territory. A spelling mistake in a board English answer is a mark, and the vocabulary being tested is now the vocabulary a student needs to write with. The Class 10 list here is deliberately hard; adults misspell most of it.

When to stop worrying and when not to

Occasional spelling errors in a child who reads fluently and writes willingly are not a problem worth a fight. Persistent difficulty with the sounds in a word - a Class 4 child writing “hoping” for “hopping” or reversing letters consistently - is different, and worth mentioning to the class teacher. A spelling test can show you the pattern. It cannot tell you why the pattern is there.