encounter, for example, zoo oo (/ʊ/) book, took, foot, wood, good Oa The digraph oa is very rare at the end of an English word. boat, coat, road, coach, goal Oe toe, goes Ou The only common English word ending in ou is you. out, about, mouth, around, sound ow (/aʊ/) ow (/əʊ/) ue ew Both the /u:/ and /ju:/ (‘oo’ and ‘yoo’) sounds can be spelt as u–e, ue and ew. If words end in the /oo/ sound, ue and ew are more common spellings than oo. now, how, brown, down, town own, blow, snow, grow, show blue, clue, true, rescue, Tuesday new, few, grew, flew, drew, threw ie (/aɪ/) lie, tie, pie, cried, tried, dried ie (/i:/) chief, field, thief Igh high, night, light, bright, right Or for, short, born, horse, morning Ore more, score, before, wore, shore Aw saw, draw, yawn, crawl Au author, August, dinosaur, astronaut Air air, fair, pair, hair, chair Ear dear, hear, beard, near, year ear (/ɛə/) bear, pear, wear are (/ɛə/) bare, dare, care, share, scared Statutory requirements Rules and guidance (nonstatutory) Example words (nonstatutory) Words ending –y (/i:/ or /ɪ/) very, happy, funny, party, family New consonant spellings ph and The /f/ sound is not usually spelt as ph in short everyday words (e.g. fat, fill, fun). dolphin, alphabet, phonics, elephant when, where, which, wheel, while
–s, but is added if the plural does not end in –s (i.e. is an irregular plural – e.g. children’s). nouns ending in an s use the ’s suffix e.g. Cyprus’s population) Homophones and accept/except, affect/effect, ball/bawl, berry/bury, brake/break, fair/fare, grate/great, groan/grown, here/hear, heel/heal/he’ll, knot/not, mail/male, main/mane, meat/meet, medal/meddle, missed/mist, peace/piece, plain/plane, rain/rein/reign, scene/seen, weather/whether, whose/who’s
Statutory requirements Rules and guidance (nonstatutory) Example words (nonstatutory) Words with the /i:/ sound spelt ei after c The ‘i before e except after c’ rule applies to words where the sound spelt by ei is /i:/. Exceptions: protein, caffeine, seize (and either and neither if pronounced with an initial /i:/ sound). deceive, conceive, receive, perceive, ceiling Words containing the letter-string ough ough is one of the trickiest spellings in English – it can be used to spell a number of different sounds. ought, bought, thought, nought, brought, fought rough, tough, enough cough though, although, dough through thorough, borough plough, bough Words with ‘silent’ letters (i.e. letters whose presence cannot be predicted from the pronunciation of the word) Some letters which are no longer sounded used to be sounded hundreds of years ago: e.g. in knight, there was a /k/ sound before the /n/, and the gh used to represent the sound that ‘ch’ now represents in the Scottish word loch. doubt, island, lamb, solemn, thistle, knight Statutory requirements Rules and guidance (nonstatutory) Example words (nonstatutory) Homophones and other words that are often confused In the pairs of words opposite, nouns end –ce and verbs end –se. Advice and advise provide a useful clue as the word advise (verb) is pronounced with a /z/ sound – which could not be spelt c. More examples: aisle: a gangway between seats (in a church, advice/advise device/devise licence/license practice/practise prophecy/prophesy farther: further