PSLE English: The MUST-KNOW List of Commonly Misspelled Words

Helping your child who has issues with spelling can be a frustrating and arduous task.  To make matters worse, there are 171,476 words in the English language.  How is your child ever going to memorise the spelling of every single word?

If your child still has difficulties with spelling despite you trying out all sorts of methods to help him improve, then you may just want to get your child to rely on brute memory and practice to drill the words in.

In this blog post, we have distilled all the words down to a list of 150 words that are frequently misspelled.

Your child may have to spell these words in the Spelling and Editing section of the English paper, or your child may have to use these words in their composition writing or situational writing.  Whatever it is, your child will benefit from studying these words.

You can download the spelling list of frequently misspelled words by clicking the blue button below:

Click here to Download

How to Use this Spelling List

After you have downloaded the spelling list, do not make your child memorise the spelling of all 150 words at once.  Instead, you can get your child to memorise and practise spelling 10 words per week, over a span of 15 weeks.

Give your child a spelling test based on the 10 words, and if your child is up for a challenge, get him or her to spell words that were previously tested before.  By using this recall method occasionally, the memory of the word’s spelling will remain in your child’s mind for a longer period of time.

As for words that your child misspells during the test, get him to rewrite that word 5-10 times.  Even better, get her to close her eyes and visualise spelling the word out in her mind.  She must be able to see every single letter that is being written in her mind.  This will help activate the visual memory.

For more methods on how to improve spelling, you can read this article here >>> https://writingsamurai.com/how-to-improve-your-childs-spelling/

150 Frequently Misspelled Words

1. absence
2. accommodate
3. achieve
4. acquire
5. address
6. advertise
7. apparent
8. argument
9. athlete
10. beginning
11. believe
12. benefit
13. brilliant
14. business
15. calendar
16. category
17. ceiling
18. cemetery
19. certain
20. chief
21. citizen
22. competition
23. convenience
24. criticise
25. definite
26. deposit
27. desperate
28. develop
29. dilemma
30. disappear
31. disappoint
32. discipline
33. embarrass
34. environment
35. equipped
36. exaggerate
37. exercise
38. existence
39. experience
40. experiment
41. explanation
42. familiar
43. fascinating
44. foreign
45. forty
46. fundamental
47. generally
48. government
49. grammar
50. guarantee
51. guidance
52. happiness
53. humorous
54. identity
55. imaginary
56. imitation
57. immediately
58. incidentally
59. independent
60. intelligent
61. interesting
62. interfere
63. interpretation
64. interruption
65. invitation
66. irrelevant
67. irritable
68. jealous
69. judgement
70. knowledge
71. laboratory
72. length
73. lesson
74. library
75. license
76. loneliness
77. marriage
78. mathematics
79. medicine
80. miniature
81. minute
82. mysterious
83. naturally
84. necessary
85. neighbour
86. neither
87. noticeable
88. occasion
89. occur
90. official
91. often
92. omission
93. operate
94. optimism
95. original
96. paid
97. parallel
98. particularly
99. peculiar
100. perceive
101. permanent
102. persevere
103. personally
104. persuade
105. pleasant
106. political
107. possess
108. possible
109. prejudice
110. presence
111. privilege
112. probably
113. professional
114. psychology
115. quantity
116. quiet
117. quit
118. quite
119. realise
120. receive
121. recognise
122. recommend
123. reference
124. religious
125. repetition
126. restaurant
127. rhythm
128. ridiculous
129. sacrifice
130. scissors
131. secretary
132. separate
133. shining
134. similar
135. sincerely
136. strength
137. succeed
138. successful
139. surely
140. surprise
141. temperature
142. temporary
143. thorough
144. through
145. truly
146. twelfth
147. unusual
148. using
149. usually
150. weird

You can download the spelling list of frequently misspelled words by clicking the blue button below:

Click here to Download