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Words with Sneaky Past Tense Forms

When forming the past tense, words are split into regular and irregular verbs. In the case of regular verbs, the past tense is formed by adding ‘ed’ to the end of a verb (or just the letter ‘d’ if the verb ends in the letter ‘e’). Irregular verbs, on the other hand, do not follow the normal rules. This week, we’re taking a look at five words with confusing past tense forms. Is it ‘spelt’ or ‘spelled’? We couldn’t resist starting with this one! ‘Spell’ is one of a few verbs that has both a regular past tense form and an irregular one. The past tense and past participle of this word can be either ‘...

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Greek Word Roots

Often, when you come across a new word, you can break it down into parts in order to try and figure out what it means and how to spell it. To help you do this, it is worth paying attention to word roots. Once you accept that English words come from all over the world, you can group them depending on where they are from and start to look out for word patterns. For example, if you recognise that the Greek ‘phob’ means ‘fear’, you can usually assume that English words which include ‘phob’ also describe fear in one way or another,for example ‘phobia’ or 'claustrophobic' If you know that the Greek ‘acr’ means ‘height ...

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A Word for Wednesday: Spell

This week’s 'Word for Wednesday' is‘spell’. The Oxford Dictionary gives a grand total of four different definitions for this word. A reminder of how important context is to the meaning of many words, and why the English language can be so confusing to learn. Since we’re a spelling website let’s start with the most obvious definition; Spell as a verb means to write or name the letters that form a word in the correct sequence. ‘I wish you would learn to spell’. The second definition is a little more archaic, one of spell’s noun definitions is a charm or incantation – a set of words, which supposedly have magical powers. Uses o...

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Five reasons why it is worth learning to spell

Unfortunately there is no shortcut when it comes to learning how to spell – it takes practice, and sometimes lots of it. Spellzone will guide you through the ins and outs of English spelling, but you are probably wondering: Is it worth the effort? Here are five reasons why we think learning how to spell is important…… Poor spelling can lose you marks in exams More and more examination criteria are testing students’ ability to spell and punctuate well. Whilst this may seem unfair, it doesn’t seem worth taking the risk. Do you really want to lose marks in a subject you’re passionate about because of poor spelling?   Poor spelling will d...

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"Thank goodness for Spellzone during this remote learning phase. The site is easy for students to navigate independently and they're really enjoying the activities and spelling games. You get an awful lot for your money with Spellzone. Really reassuring is the very prompt response with helpdesk queries. I've very rarely needed the helpdesk, but when I have, the issue has been addressed and sorted within a very short time."

Sarah Taggart, Oasis Academy Lord's Hill