Year 3 and 4 Spelling List: All 100 Statutory Words and How to Learn Them

The Year 3 and 4 spelling list is the set of 100 statutory words in the national curriculum for England that children are expected to learn to spell during lower key stage 2, from accident and address to weight and woman. All 100 words appear in the table that follows, in alphabetical order.

According to the Department for Education, the lists for Years 3 and 4 and Years 5 and 6 mix words pupils use often in their writing with words they often misspell. Schools teach them alongside the spelling rules for the same years, which explain many of the trickier words, so learning a word with its rule usually makes it stick.

What is on the Year 3 and 4 statutory spelling list?

There are 100 words, and some entries show related forms with a slash or brackets: accident with accidentally, actual with actually, busy with business, eight with eighth, occasion with occasionally, possess with possession, though with although, and woman with women. Learning each pair together doubles the value of the effort.

Several words on the list are spelt in ways that cannot be worked out from their sound, such as February, guard, island, peculiar and separate, and others contain a spelling pattern taught in the same years, such as the ou in young-type words (enough), the ei of reign and weight, or the -ure ending of pressure.

Which spelling rules go with the list?

The statutory content for Years 3 and 4 sets out the rules that sit behind many of the listed words. Children learn when to double a final consonant before adding an ending (forgetting, beginner), how the prefixes dis-, mis-, in-, re-, sub-, inter-, super-, anti- and auto- attach to root words, and how in- becomes il-, im- or ir- before certain letters, as in illegal, impossible and irregular.

The same years cover the suffixes -ation, -ly and -ous, endings that sound like zhuh and chuh (measure, picture), endings that sound like shun (-tion, -sion, -ssion, -cian), the possessive apostrophe with plural words, and words from Greek, French and Latin such as chorus, unique and science.

• Hard-to-hear vowels: separate, different, interest, library, ordinary and particular all contain a vowel that is easy to miss when the word is said quickly.
• Silent letters: island, guard, guide, build and answer each contain a letter that is not pronounced.
• Homophones and near-homophones: heard and herd, breath and breathe, and weight with its partner wait reward a child who knows the meaning.
• Endings: position and question end in -tion and pressure ends in -ure, so the ending patterns taught in these years carry straight across.

Which words do children find hardest?

February catches out many children because the first r is often not heard, and the same is true of library and probably. Separate is often written with an e in the middle, and the curriculum's own guidance notes that opposite is related to oppose, which explains the o in its middle.

Words with silent or unusual letters form the second group to watch: island, guard, and the gu of guide. A parent can help by noting which words a child misspells over a few weeks; errors tend to cluster around one feature, and working on that feature fixes several words at once.

How to learn the Year 3 and 4 words

Little and often is the most reliable approach. Practising a small group of words several times a week, then checking them again after a gap, builds the long-term memory that matters when a child writes independently, and ten words a week covers the full list in about a term.

The curriculum's notes recommend teaching root words first and then adding prefixes and suffixes: once busy is learnt, business follows as busy plus ness with the y changed to i, and once appear is learnt, disappear is simply dis- added. Building words this way turns 100 separate facts into a smaller number of patterns.

• Look, say, cover, write, check, with the word said aloud and compared letter by letter afterwards.
• Build from the root: learn decide before decision, possess before possession, and history before historical.
• Spot the trap: underline the part of the word that causes the mistake, such as the second r in February.
• Use it: ask the child to write each word in a short sentence of their own, which shows whether the meaning is secure.

How does the list connect to Year 5 and 6?

The Year 3 and 4 list is the first of two statutory key stage 2 word lists, and the Year 5 and 6 list adds 100 longer words such as accommodate, necessary and rhythm. The curriculum expects schools to revise earlier work in each later year, so the Year 3 and 4 words keep appearing in upper key stage 2 and in the end of key stage 2 spelling test.

Children who leave Year 4 secure on these words, and on the rules that go with them, are well placed for the longer and less regular words that follow.

Helping at home without overloading

Short sessions of a few minutes work well for children aged seven to nine, and spelling practice fits easily into reading time or journeys. Games that use the words, such as finding them in a book or making the longest word from a root and its prefixes and suffixes, keep practice varied.

If a child is consistently struggling with spelling despite regular practice, it is worth speaking to the class teacher, who can say how the child compares with the expectations for their year and whether any further assessment would help.

Related guides

• Year 5 and 6 spelling list
• KS2 reading list
• Year 6 SATs: papers, timings and scores
• Primary school tutoring

Tutoring with Taylor Tuition

One-to-one support for this stage works best when the tutor can see the pupil's own work, so sessions with us start from recent papers and homework and build a routine from there. More than half of our tutors hold Qualified Teacher Status and around three in five hold a master's degree or doctorate, and the pool includes former heads of department, exam-board examiners and teachers from independent and boarding schools.

Sessions run online for families across the UK and internationally, and in person in central London. Fees start from £50 per 50-minute session and depend on tutor level and subject, with no registration fee and a free initial consultation. Every tutor who works with children holds an enhanced DBS check, and families receive progress reports after sessions.