Cambridge YLE Movers Word List: A Spelling Guide for Parents

Movers is the step where spelling starts to carry real weight. At Starters, most written tasks give a child something to copy or choose from. At Movers, children are asked to produce words from memory — writing answers, completing sentences, labelling from pictures — and an answer that cannot be read as the target word does not score.

The word list is the syllabus, and working through it systematically at home is the most reliable preparation there is.

Work from the official list, not a copy

Cambridge Assessment English publishes the official YLE wordlist covering all three levels, and revises it periodically. Third-party copies circulate widely and are often out of date.

Two things follow. First, download the current version from the Cambridge site rather than using a printout of unknown vintage. Second, treat any word count you read online — including in older blog posts — with caution, since the list has changed across syllabus revisions.

Always work from the current official wordlist, and check the level requirements on the Cambridge site before building a practice schedule. This is the one piece of preparation advice that does not go out of date.

What to do: find the current wordlist and the Movers exam format page before you plan anything else. Ten minutes of checking saves weeks of preparing for the wrong thing.

The Movers list builds on Starters

The YLE levels are cumulative. Movers assumes the Starters vocabulary and adds to it, so a child preparing for Movers needs the Starters words secure as well — they do not stop being examinable.

In practice this means preparation has two parts: confirming the Starters vocabulary is still reliable, and working through the words Movers adds. Families often skip the first part and are surprised when basic words fail under exam conditions.

Run a covered check across the Starters vocabulary before starting Movers work. The Starters guide covers that ground, and anything still shaky belongs in the practice list.

What the spelling demands actually are

At Movers, the written tasks generally require:

Words produced from memory, rather than selected from options.
Spelling accurate enough to be unambiguous. A near-miss that clearly indicates the intended word is treated differently from one that could be another word entirely.
Common everyday vocabulary — the topic areas of the wordlist, which cover things like animals, food, home, school, sports and the world around a child.
Some short written answers, where several words must be right together.

The practical bar is producing the word from nothing, which is a different skill from recognising it — and only covered practice trains it. The distinction matters more than almost anything else in exam preparation.

What to do: never practise Movers vocabulary with the word visible. If your child can see it, they are rehearsing recognition and the exam wants production.

A workable home structure

Rather than working through the list alphabetically, which is how most families start and abandon:

Work by topic, matching the wordlist’s own groupings. One topic per week, so related words reinforce each other.
Test the topic covered before teaching it. Most children already know a third to a half of any topic, and those words need review, not practice.
Practise the failures only — five to eight words at a time for this age group, using look, cover, write, check.
Re-test the topic a week later. Words that survive a week are secure; words that do not go back into the working set.
Keep a running list of persistent failures across topics. This becomes the pre-exam revision list, and it is usually far shorter than parents expect.

Ten to fifteen minutes, four or five days a week, sustained across a term, covers a great deal of ground — considerably more than intensive work in the final month, because spacing is what makes spellings durable.

In the final weeks

Shift from learning to consolidation about three weeks out:

Stop introducing new words two weeks before the exam. Anything not learned by then will not be secure, and adding it displaces revision of what is.
Review by mixed topic rather than in the order learned. Children memorise sequence surprisingly easily, and the exam will not follow the wordlist’s order.
Practise writing under mild time pressure, since accuracy drops when speed matters.
Keep the final week light. Ten minutes daily on the persistent-failure list, and calm.

Two weeks out, the goal is retrieval of what is known rather than acquisition of what is not.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many words are on the Cambridge YLE Movers list?

Cambridge publishes the official wordlist and revises it periodically, so the reliable answer is whatever the current version on the Cambridge Assessment English site says. Figures quoted in blog posts and forums are often from superseded syllabus versions — check the source directly rather than trusting a number, including any you find here.

Does Movers include the Starters words?

Yes, the levels are cumulative. Movers assumes the Starters vocabulary and adds to it, so Starters words remain examinable. It is worth running a covered check across the Starters list before starting Movers preparation, because families often assume that ground is secure when it is not.

How much does spelling matter in the Movers exam?

More than at Starters, because the written tasks require producing words rather than selecting them. The general principle is that an answer needs to be unambiguously readable as the intended word. Check the current Cambridge assessment guidance for how borderline spellings are treated, since this is the kind of detail that changes between syllabus versions.

How long before the exam should we start preparing?

A term of short, regular sessions is more effective than a month of intensive work, because memory consolidates between practices rather than during them. Ten to fifteen minutes, four or five days a week across a school term, comfortably covers a topic-based route through the list.

Should we work through the list alphabetically?

No — work by topic, matching the wordlist’s own groupings. Related words reinforce each other, and a topic is a satisfying unit to finish. Alphabetical order groups unrelated words together and is the main reason families abandon the list partway.

My child knows the words but panics in the exam. What helps?

Practise under mild time pressure in the final weeks, since accuracy drops when speed matters and the first experience of that should not be the exam itself. Keep the last week light and calm — cramming raises anxiety more than it raises scores, and a tired, anxious child underperforms what they know.

SpellEasy includes built-in Cambridge YLE word lists and tracks which words are mastered, so a topic-by-topic route through Movers does not need managing on paper. Download free on the App Store.