How can you tell they’ve got it: Suffixes (age 9+)?

If they’ve got it, you’ll see things like: Apply the pattern that -cious follows a vowel (spacious, gracious) while -tious follows a consonant (cautious, ambitious), noting common exceptions like anxious; Choose between -cial (usually after a vowel: special, official) and -tial (usually after a consonant: essential, partial) when spelling words with the /ʃəl/ ending; Select -ant/-ance or -ent/-ence by checking whether the root ends in a hard c or g sound (-ant: significant) or a soft c or g sound (-ent: innocent), and by applying word-family strategies. Or just try it together: Can your child spell words with tricky endings like "-cious," "-tious," or "-cial" — for example, "precious," "cautious," or "official" — without making mistakes?

English Spelling & Word Study Ages 9–10

Suffixes (age 9+)

Your child can spell tricky endings that sound the same, like -cious in precious and -tious in cautious, or -cial and -tial.

In curriculum terms

Spell words with Latin and French suffix patterns: endings sounding like /ʃəs/ spelt -cious or -tious (e.g., precious, cautious), /ʃəl/ spelt -cial or -tial (e.g., official, essential), and words ending in -ant/-ance/-ancy vs -ent/-ence/-ency (e.g., observant/observance, confident/confidence)

Ages are typical, not deadlines — follow your child’s pace. How to help at home →

How to tell they’ve got it

Tick these off as you see them — no test required.

Apply the pattern that -cious follows a vowel (spacious, gracious) while -tious follows a consonant (cautious, ambitious), noting common exceptions like anxious
Choose between -cial (usually after a vowel: special, official) and -tial (usually after a consonant: essential, partial) when spelling words with the /ʃəl/ ending
Select -ant/-ance or -ent/-ence by checking whether the root ends in a hard c or g sound (-ant: significant) or a soft c or g sound (-ent: innocent), and by applying word-family strategies

🖨 Print this page to keep the checklist — it prints beautifully.

Try this together

Can your child spell words with tricky endings like "-cious," "-tious," or "-cial" — for example, "precious," "cautious," or "official" — without making mistakes?

Where this sits on the map

Stuck here? Check the skills it builds on first. Confident? Here’s what it unlocks.

Builds on

Suffixesages 7–9Latin/French suffix spelling patterns (-cious/-tious, -cial/-tial, -ant/-ance/-ent/-ence) build on Y3-4 suffix programme knowledge

Suffixes (age 9+)this skill · ages 9–10

Unlocks

Nothing on the map depends on this yet.

solid = must come firstdashed = helps

Curriculum alignment

Where this fits in the official school curriculum — our best automated guess, not yet checked by a person.

Show candidate curriculum codes · 2 ACARA · 2 NSW · 3 VIC

Australian Curriculum v9 candidate

AC9E3LY11low confidenceYear 3 · Literacy

use phoneme–grapheme (sound–letter) relationships and less common letter patterns to spell words

AC9E3LY10low confidenceYear 3 · Literacy

understand how to apply knowledge of common base words, prefixes, suffixes and generalisations for adding a suffix to a base word to read and comprehend new multimorphemic words

NSW syllabus codes & stages only

EN2-SPELL-01medium confidenceEnglish K-10 · Stage 2

EN3-SPELL-01medium confidenceEnglish K-10 · Stage 3

Victorian Curriculum 2.0 codes & levels only

VC2E3LY05medium confidenceEnglish · Level 3 · Literacy strand

VC2E5LY04low confidenceEnglish · Level 5 · Literacy strand

VC2E4LY04low confidenceEnglish · Level 4 · Literacy strand

These are candidate alignments generated by semantic matching — machine-suggested and unreviewed (v0.1), not official or verified mappings. For official curriculum content see australiancurriculum.edu.au, curriculum.nsw.edu.au and f10.vcaa.vic.edu.au. Don’t rely on them for registration or compliance purposes.

Nearby on the map

Advanced Spelling Conventionsages 9–10 Homophonesages 9–10 Silent Letters in Wordsages 9–10 Spelling -able & -ibleages 9–10

All Spelling & Word Study skills →