--- title: Tricky words and common exception words — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Tricky words and common exception words», a lesson of the english course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Most English words follow the sound rules, but some very common ones have an odd bit. --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/3-tricky-words-and-common-exception-words/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [English](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/) / Tricky words and common exception words # Tricky words and common exception words Lesson 3 of the english course of Mova's primary school: 22 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/english/3-tricky-words-and-common-exception-words/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/3-tricky-words-and-common-exception-words/0/) — Most English words follow the sound rules, but some very common ones have an odd bit. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/3-tricky-words-and-common-exception-words/1/) — Schools call them tricky words or common exception words, and the National Curriculum in England lists them for each year: «said», «was», «because», «people», «friend». - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/3-tricky-words-and-common-exception-words/2/) — They are odd mostly because they are old: the way people say them changed over hundreds of years, and the spelling stayed behind. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/3-tricky-words-and-common-exception-words/3/) — A tricky word is almost never tricky all the way through. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/3-tricky-words-and-common-exception-words/5/) — So the smart move is to find the odd bit, underline it, and learn just that part, maybe with a trick: «Big Elephants Can Always Understand Small Elephants» spells BECAUSE. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/3-tricky-words-and-common-exception-words/7/) — That is a good phonics attempt, not a silly one. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/3-tricky-words-and-common-exception-words/8/) — The fix is calm: «Great listening! - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/3-tricky-words-and-common-exception-words/9/) — This one is tricky: s-ai-d.» - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/3-tricky-words-and-common-exception-words/11/) — Learning a family together halves the work. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/3-tricky-words-and-common-exception-words/12/) — Short, regular practice beats long battles. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/3-tricky-words-and-common-exception-words/13/) — Five minutes a day with three to five words, as a game, works better than an hour of flashcards ending in tears. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/3-tricky-words-and-common-exception-words/15/) — Common exception words are frequent words whose spelling does not fully match their sounds; the National Curriculum lists them for each year. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/3-tricky-words-and-common-exception-words/16/) — Most of a tricky word still follows the rules; usually only one part is odd, like «au» in «because». - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/3-tricky-words-and-common-exception-words/17/) — Many tricky words are old words whose sound changed while the spelling stayed the same. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/3-tricky-words-and-common-exception-words/18/) — Most English spelling is regular; only a small number of very common words are odd. - [19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/3-tricky-words-and-common-exception-words/19/) — A word wall in class shows key words so children can check them; using it is how spellings get learned, not cheating. - [20](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/3-tricky-words-and-common-exception-words/20/) — Look, say, cover, write, check is a way to learn a spelling: look at it, say it, cover it, write it from memory, then check. - [21](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/3-tricky-words-and-common-exception-words/21/) — Recognising a word when reading is easier than recalling its spelling, so children often read a word before they can spell it. - [22](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/3-tricky-words-and-common-exception-words/22/) — Tricky words often come in families with the same odd part: say, says, said; come, some, done, none; the, they, there. - [23](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/3-tricky-words-and-common-exception-words/23/) — Memory works better with short practice spread over days than with one long session. - [25](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/3-tricky-words-and-common-exception-words/25/) — «Friend» has «end» at the end: «a friend to the end». - [26](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/3-tricky-words-and-common-exception-words/26/) — Dyslexia is a lasting difficulty with reading and spelling; only a specialist can identify it, never from one mistake. - ← previous: [Blending, segmenting and the Year 1 check](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/2-blending-segmenting-and-the-year-1-check/) - next →: [Vowel teams, split digraphs and choosing the spelling](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/4-vowel-teams-split-digraphs-and-choosing-the-spelling/) - ↑ back to [English](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/)