Year 2 spelling words and rules: a parent's guide

What Year 2 children are expected to spell

The national curriculum for England sets out what children should learn to spell in each year, in a document called English Appendix 1. For Year 2 it has two parts: a list of 64 common exception words, and a set of spelling patterns and rules. Children are also expected to keep using the sounds and the 45 exception words they learnt in Year 1.

Rule words follow a pattern you can teach. “Badge” ends in dge because the j sound comes straight after a short vowel. Exception words break the rules or use an unusual spelling, so they have to be learnt as whole words: “said”, “because”, “people”. Most children need both kinds of practice, but they need them in different ways. Rules are learnt by noticing and applying; exception words are learnt by seeing and writing them often.

By the end of Year 2, children are expected to spell most of the Year 2 exception words correctly, use the patterns in their own writing, and use apostrophes for contractions and for showing that something belongs to someone.

The 64 Year 2 common exception words

Here is the full statutory list, grouped so that words sharing a sound sit together. Grouping them this way makes them far easier to learn than an alphabetical list, because your child only has to remember one odd spelling for the whole group.

• oor as in poor: door, floor, poor
• i saying its name (and one cousin): find, kind, mind, behind, child, children, wild, climb
• o saying its name: most, only, both, old, cold, gold, hold, told
• e saying its name: every, everybody, even
• ea sounding like ai: great, break, steak
• a sounding like ar: after, fast, last, past, father, class, grass, pass, plant, path, bath
• o sounding like oo: move, prove, improve
• s sounding like sh: sure, sugar
• ould: could, should, would
• wh sounding like h: who, whole
• a sounding like e: any, many
• words that are simply their own thing: because, pretty, beautiful, hour, eye, clothes, busy, people, water, again, half, money, Mr, Mrs, parents, Christmas

One note on the “a sounding like ar” group. In many northern accents these words have a short a, exactly as they are spelt, so they are not exceptions at all. If that is how your family speaks, teach them as ordinary words.

Why they are tricky

Most of these words are very common, which is why they matter, and most use a spelling that does not match the sounds a Year 2 child has been taught to expect. “People” has an o that does nothing. “Half” has a silent l. “Sugar” starts with an s that sounds like sh. Children who have learnt phonics well will, quite sensibly, spell these words as they sound, and they need to be told that these are the rebels: words to look at closely, notice the odd bit, and remember.

A good trick is to ask your child to find the tricky part and circle it. In “because”, it is the au. In “beautiful”, it is the eau. Once the odd bit has a name, it is much easier to hold on to.

The 45 Year 1 words to keep revisiting

The Year 1 list does not go away in Year 2, and a few of its words are misspelt well into key stage 2. Keep them in circulation: the, a, do, to, today, of, said, says, are, were, was, is, his, has, I, you, your, they, be, he, me, she, we, no, go, so, by, my, here, there, where, love, come, some, one, once, ask, friend, school, put, push, pull, full, house, our.

Year 2 spelling rules, one at a time

Each pattern below has a one-line rule and a few examples. Your child’s school will teach them in its own order, usually one a week, so use these as a reference rather than a syllabus.

dge, ge and g for the j sound

After a short vowel sound, the j sound at the end of a word is spelt dge: badge, edge, bridge, fudge. After any other sound it is spelt ge: age, huge, change, village. In the middle or at the start of a word, g is used before e, i and y (gem, giant, magic) and j before a, o and u (jacket, jog, jump).

Soft c

The letter c makes an s sound when it comes before e, i or y: race, ice, cell, city, fancy.

Silent letters: kn, gn and wr

Some words begin with a letter that is not heard. The n sound can be spelt kn or gn (knock, know, knee, gnat, gnaw) and the r sound can be spelt wr (write, wrote, wrong, wrap).

The endings le, el, al and il

The most common spelling of this ending is le: table, apple, bottle, little, middle. The el ending is used after m, n, r, s, v and w: camel, tunnel, squirrel, travel, towel, tinsel. The al ending is common too: metal, pedal, capital, hospital, animal. The il ending is rare: pencil, fossil, nostril.

Words ending in y

At the end of a word, the igh sound is usually spelt y: cry, fly, dry, try, reply, July.

Words ending in ey

The ee sound at the end of a word is often spelt ey: key, donkey, monkey, chimney, valley.

Adding es to words ending in y

When a word ends in a consonant followed by y, change the y to i before adding es: flies, tries, replies, copies, babies, carries.

Adding ed, er, est and ing to words ending in y

Change the y to i before ed, er and est (copied, copier, happier, happiest, cried, replied) but keep the y before ing, because English avoids a double i: copying, crying, replying.

Adding endings to words ending in e

Drop the e before adding ing, ed, er, est or y: hiking, hiked, hiker, nicer, nicest, shiny.

Doubling the last letter

If a word has one syllable, one short vowel and one consonant at the end, double the last letter before adding ing, ed, er, est or y: patting, patted, humming, hummed, dropping, dropped, sadder, saddest, runner, runny. The letter x is never doubled.

a before l and ll

The or sound before l or ll is spelt a: all, ball, call, walk, talk, always.

o for the u sound

A few common words use o for the u sound: other, mother, brother, nothing, Monday.

a after w and qu

After w and qu, the o sound is spelt a: want, watch, wander, quantity, squash.

or and ar after w

After w, the er sound is spelt or (word, work, worm, world, worth) and the or sound is spelt ar (war, warm, towards).

s that sounds like the middle of treasure

A soft, buzzing sound is spelt s in a handful of words: television, treasure, usual.

Words ending in tion

The shun sound at the end of a word is spelt tion: station, fiction, motion, national, section.

The suffixes ment, ness, ful, less and ly

Usually these are simply added to the root word: enjoyment, sadness, careful, playful, hopeless, badly. If the root has more than one syllable and ends in a consonant followed by y, change the y to i first: happiness, plentiful, penniless, happily.

Contractions

An apostrophe shows where letters have been left out: can’t, didn’t, hasn’t, couldn’t, it’s, I’ll. The one that catches everyone is it’s, which only ever means it is or it has. When something belongs to it, there is no apostrophe: the dog wagged its tail.

The possessive apostrophe

To show that something belongs to one person or thing, add an apostrophe and s: Megan’s coat, Ravi’s book, the girl’s bag, the child’s toy, the man’s hat.

Homophones and near-homophones

Words that sound the same but are spelt differently: there, their and they’re; here and hear; quite and quiet; see and sea; bare and bear; one and won; sun and son; to, too and two; be and bee; blue and blew; night and knight. These are learnt by meaning, not by sound, so talk about what each one means and use it in a sentence.

Spelling tests in Year 2

Almost every school runs a short weekly spelling test in Year 2, usually on a Friday, with words that were sent home the week before. The format varies: some schools read the words in sentences, some ask for a short dictation, and some test the same words twice a few weeks apart to see whether they have stuck.

The bigger tests you may have heard of, key stage 1 SATs, have been optional since the 2023/24 school year. Schools can still choose to use them in May, and if yours does, the spelling paper is a short test of 20 words read aloud in sentences. Either way, nothing about your child’s future depends on it, and the preparation is the same as for the weekly test.

How to help at home

The routine most schools teach is look, cover, write, check. Your child looks carefully at the word and says it, covers it with a hand or a card, writes it from memory, then uncovers it and checks letter by letter. If it is wrong, they look again and have another go. A word is secure when it is spelt correctly, unprompted, on a later day. Our Year 2 spelling practice pack has look, cover, write, check pages for all 64 exception words, with a tracker for recording when each one is secure.

A few other things help. Ask your child to say the sounds as they write, so that phonics and spelling stay joined up. Put each word into a sentence, which is the only way homophones ever stick. Try a short dictation now and then: you read a sentence, they write it, and you check it together, which shows whether a spelling has moved from the list into real writing. When a word will not go in, make it physical, with big letters in the air, in sand, or painted with water on the patio. And keep sessions short. Five words a day is plenty, and ten minutes on most days does more than a long session the night before the test.

Common mistakes and what they tell you

A mistake usually shows which stage a child has reached, and most of the common ones are signs of progress.

What you see	What it tells you	What to do
“sed” for said, “wos” for was	Phonics is working; these are exception words	See and write the word more often: look, cover, write, check
“wich” for which, “nife” for knife	The silent letter has not been noticed	Circle it and give it a silly voice
“stashun” for station	The sound is right; the tion pattern is not known yet	Teach tion as a chunk and hunt for it in books
“runing” for running, “hopeing” for hoping	The suffix rules are still settling	A handful of doubling and e-dropping examples side by side
“there” for their	Meaning, not sound, is the problem	Talk about who owns what

A simple weekly routine

Here is a routine that fits around school spellings and takes about ten minutes a day.

Day	What to do
Monday	Read the new words together. Spot the pattern and circle the tricky part of any exception words.
Tuesday	Look, cover, write, check for every word.
Wednesday	Write each word in a sentence, or do a short dictation using three of them.
Thursday	Look, cover, write, check again, only for the words that went wrong.
Friday	Quick test at home before school, then celebrate the ones that stuck.
Weekend	Nothing formal. Read a book together and point out any of the week’s words you spot.

Spelling, phonics and handwriting

Spelling in Year 2 sits on top of the phonics your child learnt in Reception and Year 1. If sounding out and blending still feel shaky, it is worth going back to them before pushing on with spelling lists, and our guide to the Year 1 phonics screening check explains the sounds involved and how to practise them.

Handwriting matters too. Writing a word by hand, rather than typing it or picking it from a list, helps the spelling lodge in memory, so practise on paper whenever you can. Comfortable pencil grip, a steady sitting position and letters formed the way the school teaches them all make spelling practice easier. The practice pack uses wide writing lines with a faint midline for exactly this reason.