Several short reviews are more useful than trying to learn a long list in one sitting. Choose words your child currently needs and help them notice what makes each spelling work.

Choose three to five words

Use current school spellings or recurring errors from your child’s work. Group related words where possible.

For example, if carefully is difficult:

• mark care as the root;

• compare care, careful and carefully;

• notice that the final y belongs to ly.

Spread the practice

Over a week or so, in short sessions on the days that suit you:

• First: look at the pattern and write the word together.

• Next: cover it and write it from memory.

• Then: use it in a sentence.

• Later: mix it with two other words.

• Finally: check whether it can be written without a prompt.

With a younger child, some sessions can be playful. Build the word in playdough or magnetic letters, use the week’s words in a game of Hangman, or hunt for words with the same pattern in a book or on food packaging.

Correct an error straight away, look again at the tricky part and try once more. Avoid copying the word ten times or correcting every spelling in a piece of writing.

Once they know the word well, look for it in ordinary writing. Getting it right there matters more than a perfect spelling test.