7.3 High-Risk Spelling, Collocations, UK/US Variants & Word Families

7.3 High-Risk Spelling, Collocations, UK/US Variants & Word Families

Quick Answer: On Reading and Writing, every copied or written word must be spelled correctly. On Listening Part 2, a small misspelling may be allowed only if the word was not spelled out. Official UK and US forms are both accepted (biscuit/cookie, autumn/fall, theatre/theater). Learn collocations as chunks (ask a question, do some homework, take a photo, be made of wood). Copy in clear separate letters, not joined-up writing, and time-box the 40-minute paper so the 5-mark Part 7 story still gets minutes.

Two papers, two spelling rules

Cambridge is explicit. Reading and Writing (40 minutes, 7 parts, 44 questions, 48 marks) requires correct spelling throughout. Part 1 copying, Part 5 one-to-four-word gaps, Part 6 open cloze and Part 7 story words are all marked for spelling. A child who means biscuit but writes biskit loses the mark even when the meaning is obvious.

Listening Part 2 is the exception. Children write a word or a number on a form. Some misspellings are allowed only if the word is not spelled out. If the speaker says The surname is W-I-L-L-I-A-M-S, the letters on the page must match. If the speaker says a Flyers word in passing (the prize is a camera) without spelling it, a near-miss may still score. Do not gamble: teach the real spelling anyway.

Listening uses British and American accents. Reading and Writing accepts British and American spelling when both forms are on the lists. The child should not mix two spellings of the same word in one answer (theatere is not a form).

Official UK/US pairs — both accepted, none invented

Teach the pairs Cambridge actually prints. Do not invent extra US words and call them testable.

Related official pairs children already meet: colour/color, favourite/favorite, shop/store, chips/fries, sweets/candy, flat/apartment. Fire engine / fire truck is the Flyers transport pair. Backpack / rucksack and tyre / tire are Flyers leisure pairs.

Not official, so not testable as the "US version": turtle (for tortoise), pharmacy (for chemist's), freeway (for motorway), eraser, vacation as a replacement for every holiday. If those words appear in a longer text they would be glossed and not tested. Do not put them in a Part 1 box in class as if Cambridge listed them.

Classroom default in this guide is British spelling. Children who live with American English may write the US member of an official pair and still score.

High-risk letter patterns from the lists

Silent letters

Add who (silent h) and the silent l in walk from earlier lists. A Part 6 gap You cut pizza with a _____ is knife, not nife.

Double letters

Drill the ones children actually miss on Flyers papers: butterfly (tt), umbrella (ll), tomorrow (rr), traffic (ff), passenger (ss), million (ll), office (ff), pepper (pp), letter (tt), address (dd, ss — Movers), football (ll), tennis (nn), puzzle (zz), hobby (bb), shopping (pp), swimming (mm), yellow (ll), glass (ss), grass (ss), middle (dd), university, restaurant, environment, biscuit, tortoise, queen. Wood and wool look similar; wool has oo plus l, wood has oo plus d.

The -ight family

Night, light, right, tonight, flashlight. Right is both a direction and "correct". Straight (Movers/Flyers directions) is ai, not ight. Children who write tonite or lite lose the Reading and Writing mark.

ea versus ee

ee usually says the long sound: green, tree, bee, sheep, cheese, teeth, see. ea is the trap because it has two sounds: beach, teacher, eat, read, meal versus bread, head, breakfast, weather, sweater. Teach bread next to beach so the two ea sounds sit side by side.

their / there / they're

There is on Starters places (here / there). Their is the possessive (their rucksack). They're (they are) appears in stories. Flyers Part 6 open cloze loves this family. A classroom check: The children put _____ bags over _____. _____ going to the stadium. → their / there / They're.

Other exam-pain spellings

High-risk on-list spellings: February, Wednesday, friend, because, journalist, photographer, biscuit, envelope, magazine, pyramid, environment, restaurant, astronaut, yoghurt, strawberry. Piece (a piece of pizza) is not the off-list lookalike peace. Flour is food; flower is in the garden. Weather is sun, fog and storm; do not write the off-list lookalike whether.

Collocations the Handbook actually flags

Cambridge does not want a random verb plus a noun. The Handbook grammar and vocabulary pages, plus the thematic lists, flag chunks children must keep together.

Other list-true chunks: go on a journey / tour, wait on the platform, put on a bandage, buy medicine at the chemist's, play the violin, win a prize, collect stamps. Teach them as one piece of language, the way have a shower was taught at Movers.

Be / look / sound / feel / taste / smell like is Flyers-new grammar. Vocabulary from 7.1 and 7.2 fills it: This yoghurt tastes like strawberry. That sounds like a fire engine. What's the new teacher like?

Word families that stay inside the lists

Build families only from listed members. Do not test photographical or environmentalist.

• photo → photographer, take a photo
• design (if met as a verb in class) → designer; keep artist next to it
• engine → engineer, fire engine
• news → newspaper, journalist
• music → pop music / rock music, instrument, tune, singer, concert
• fog → foggy; sun → sunny; cloud → cloudy; wind → windy; storm stays a noun on the Flyers-new list
• spot → spotted; stripe → striped
• snow → snowball, snowman, snowboard, ski, sledge
• race → racing car / racing bike, winner
• invite (classroom verb) → invitation
• member ↔ join a club
• married ↔ husband / wife / surname
• gold / silver as colour and as material
• wood as place and as material
• glass as material and as a drinking glass (Movers)
• lift as elevator (Movers home) and as a ride (Flyers transport)
• diary as a home book and as a leisure writing habit

If a related form is not on Starters, Movers or Flyers, it is not a testable productive item. Unknown words in texts are glossed and never tested.

Names: the Listening Part 1 and Part 2 spelling list

Flyers-new names: Betty, David, Emma, Frank, George, Harry, Helen, Holly, Katy, Michael, Oliver, Richard, Robert, Sarah, Sophia, William.

Unisex names from earlier levels still appear, especially in Listening Part 1 matching: Alex, Kim, Pat, Sam.

Practice:

1. Hear the name in a description (Harry is the boy next to the fire engine).
2. Hear it spelled (That's H-O-L-L-Y). Write those letters only.
3. Write surname as well as first name when Speaking Part 1 asks.

High-risk name spellings: Sarah (h), Sophia (ph), Michael (ae), Oliver, William (ll), Katy (y, not Katie unless the paper spells it that way), Holly (ll), Betty (tt), George (ge). Copy the form the paper uses. Do not "correct" Katy to Katie.

Exam strategy: handwriting, quantity and the 40-minute clock

The Handbook advice that costs marks if ignored:

1. Copy clearly. A marker who does not know the child must read every letter. Make a and o, n and u, t and l obvious.
2. Do not use joined-up writing if it hides letters. Separate printed letters score more reliably than a beautiful joined script the marker cannot decode.
3. Do not write more than needed. Part 1 wants the word in the box, not a sentence. Part 5 wants 1–4 words. Part 6 wants one word. Part 7 wants more than 20 words, not a page; quality over quantity, and all three pictures.
4. Time-box Reading and Writing. The paper is 40 minutes. Part 7 is one question worth 5 marks. Children who spend 15 minutes on Part 1 definitions often leave the story empty. A practical split: Parts 1–3 about 16–18 minutes, Parts 4–6 about 16–18 minutes, Part 7 about 5–6 minutes, plus a last look at spelling and articles.
5. Articles and singular/plural. If the box says an astronaut, writing astronaut can lose the mark. If the definition says these, copy the plural.
6. Listening Part 5: colour only what you are told; write the two words clearly; Flyers has no drawing task.
7. Speaking: a few words per picture is enough in Part 3. Surname, age and six differences in Part 1. Do not hunt for off-list words to sound clever.

British spelling is the teaching default in this chapter. US official variants are accepted. Off-list lookalikes are not a shortcut to a mark. The stretch is Flyers-new clusters plus every Starters and Movers word the child met first — spelled, chunked, and copied so a stranger can read them.