In the last few weeks, year 6 have  been learning about words ending in -ant, -ance and -ancy.

Continue reading -ant, -ance and -ancy endings. →

This week (25th September 2016), year 6 will be learning about words ending in -cial and -tial. These endings are generally pronounced as ‘shul’.

What does it mean?

These endings come from the suffix -ial which loosely means ‘of’ or ‘relating to’

E.g. the word residential is built from the word residence and the suffix -ial  (the root word being ‘reside)

so the word residential means relating to residences‘

A ‘residential area’ is an area that has a lot of residences (homes)

Patterns?

There are two different spellings for ‘shul’  and the ending depends on whether the word arrived in English via French or Latin (or both).

Looking at the letter before the ‘shul’ sound can help use identify whether it is -tial or -cial

If the letter before the ‘shul’ sound is a vowel, it is a good bet that the spelling will be -tial. If the letter is a consonant, -cial will be more likely.

Grammar 

Like the -ious  suffix, words ending in -ial are generally adjectives.

Words

We have  continued to explore words that end with -tious and -cious.

Year 6 have chosen a selection of words that they would like use in their writing and so we have been learning about their meaning:

malice and malicious

ambition and ambitious

judgement and judicious

tenacity and tenacious

fiction and fictitious

We ran into a  little trouble with the word ‘fictitious’. In the sentence, They watched a fictitious film. Does the word ‘fictitious’ tell us that the ‘film’ did not exist or that it was a film full of fiction?

This week Year 6 have been learning to spell words that end in -tious and -cious.

We have begun to explore the patterns in these words as well as their meaning.

What does it mean?

The -tious and -cious are part of the -ious suffix. This suffix essentially means ‘full of’ or ‘having’ which can help us undertsand what the word means.

For example :

The word Spacious is made of the root word space  and the suffx -ious. So the word spacious means ‘having space’ or ‘full of space’

This is a spacious car. 

In in this sentence the word spacious  tells us that car  ‘has space‘ or is ‘full of space‘

Grammar 

Words ending in -tious or -cious are generally adjectives. In fact, adding the suffix -ious to a noun can turn it into an adjective.

Words