In this activity, we will look how to spell words ending with -tial and -cial.
These word endings sound the same. They make the sound 'shul'.
As the sound of the ending doesn't give us a clue as to which of the two spellings should be used, we can look at the other letters in the word to help us.
Generally, the -cial ending comes after a vowel. The ending -tial usually comes after a consonant.
Do you remember which letters are vowels? A, E, I, O, U. The rest are consonants.
However, there are some exceptions to this rule. We will look at these words today.
You can practise spelling words that follow the rule in another activity.
When words do not follow spelling rules, we have to spend some time learning and practising their spellings.
Here are some examples of words that use these endings that we will practise in this activity:
initial
financial
commercial
provincial
You can listen to them here:
The words ending in -cial all have root words end in ce (finance, commerce, province), which can help us to remember to use the -cial ending.
Use Look, Say, Cover, Write, Check to practise spellings a few times before we begin the activities.