Spelling word for children
The Basic Spelling Vocabulary List
By: Steve Graham, Karen R. Harris, Connie Loynachan
This list was created to help teachers know which spelling words should be taught to kids in grades 1–5. The list contains 850 words that account for 80 percent of the words children use in their writing — the ones they need to be able to spell correctly.
This list was devised to help educators know which spelling words should be taught to children. The list contains 850 words that account for 80 percent of the words children use in their writing — the ones they need to be able to spell correctly.
Mastering this relatively small corpus of words yields a high rate of return. For example, the most common 1,000 words are used 13 times more frequently than the next most common 1,000 words. It also provides teachers flexibility in planning spelling instruction, providing an opportunity to give children the "basics" while supplementing with other spelling words germane to classroom activities.
Grade level for each word was determined based upon difficulty, pattern of occurrence in children's writing across grades, and grade placement on current vocabulary lists and spelling materials.
Words that children have difficulty spelling correctly are marked with an asterisk.
Grade 1 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| a | fat | like* | sat
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Grade 2 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| about* | father* | lives | set |
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Grade 3 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| able | even | mind | spelling |
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Grade 4 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| across | during | mountain | sure* |
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Grade 5 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| although | different* | planet | suddenly
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Graham, S.
, Harris, K.R. and Loynachan, C. (1993). The Basic Spelling Vocabulary List. Journal of Educational Research 86(6) 363-368.
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Spelling Bee Words For Children Aged 11-12 | School Age
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Make spelling fun with a spelling bee – they will not only improve their spelling skills, but also their literacy and reading!
Easy spelling words
To help ease your child into mastering everyday words, we’ve put together a list of words to get them started.
able, aftermath, afternoon, appear, attack, attend, bicycle, breakfast, brightly, cabbage, cable, carpenter, channel, circle, climb, comfort, comical, confirm, construct, curtain, customer, damage, decide, delight, disappear, discover, empty, encourage, entertain, equal, exactly, forever, fruit, fuel, group, guard, guest, guide, guitar, handle, health, heart, heavily, helmet, idea, kindness, level, locket, lumber, magic, melon, meter, money, motor, mountain, partner, perfect, perhaps, personal, plastic, pocket, protect, provide, railway, record, reward, shoulder, socket, stranger, stroll, subject, suit, supply, temper, theatre, total, toward, treatment, useful, vacant, windy, writer.
Download this spelling list here
Medium difficulty spelling words
Once they’ve mastered the easy words, ramp up their vocabulary and help them learn to spell longer words and those pesky ones with silent letters.
activity, afterthought, apartment, appoint, approve, beginner, boundary, breathe, calendar, caption, clothe, colony, competition, concern, condition, creature, crouton, currency, cycle, devotion, disguise, dishonest, distance, disuse, eager, education, exist, famous, feather, feature, fiction, fragile, friction, grateful, guardian, household, increase, industry, invention, junction, junior, lawyer, management, mayor, meanwhile, memorable, mention, metal, mightily, minister, nature, neither, option, pardon, passenger, pickle, picture, pleasure, popular, proceed, produce, professor, property, quartet, reason, recess, reduce, reduction, reply, route, scene, scent, stolen, supporter, sweater, teachable, televise, though, thread, tidal, triple, victory, volcano, wealth, weather, weird, wilderness, wrist.
Download this spelling list here
Challenging spelling words
These words aren’t as easy as they sound but they’ve give your child a great understanding of words they’ll end up using in their school work as they get older.
achieve, acoustics, action, advertisement, anoint, apparel, appliance, awkward, burglar, calculator, capital, ceiling, cemetery, conscious, constant, detrimental, dominant, eighth, exasperating, excel, exert, exhale, extravagant, facility, faucet, frugal, jealous, language, leather, manageable, medallion, medicinal, overrule, precious, preferred, pronounce, propel, receive, recitation, reign, retrieve, significance, similar, simplicity, sleight, texture, territory, treachery, vain, valiant, veil, vein, virtue, visual, wren, wring.
Download this spelling list here
3 ways to improve the spelling of words
soroka method_RCT 1 minute
“My spelling is lame, it’s good, but for some reason it’s lame,” Winnie the Pooh said.
How to make it not lame? Yes, even in Russian as a foreign language?
When I was a little girl learning English, I used an old method called the lead butt. In order to learn how to spell a word correctly, I sat patiently and wrote this word many times, several lines of the same thing, until I remembered it. As you understand, English was a foreign language for me, the same as Russian is now for your children.
All my students are very different. Someone remembers the spelling of words very well and does not make mistakes, someone is constantly mistaken. I asked myself: “How can I help children learn spelling?”. From the very beginning it was clear to me that the old-fashioned method (multiple rewriting of the word) could not be used. Therefore, now no one correctly writes . What to do?
Now I have developed techniques that help children remember words. Here they are:
- We type words from letters. The letters can be anything: from plastic, from paper, or from clay, you can take the magnetic alphabet.
I bought a word game set. Here is a photo from my class. Each lesson we make words from letters. We pay attention to where which letter is in the word.
2. Mix and solve anagrams. There are also many options here:
- You can take the letters from which you collected the word (see paragraph 1), mix them up, and then compose the word again.
- You can write the letters on the cards, mix them up and let the children make words out of them.
- If you work with Zaitsev's cubes, then there is a similar exercise in his training manual: make a word from the cubes, look at it carefully, and then mix the cubes, and compose the word again. In Zaitsev, before the students make up a word from cubes, the teacher must show them all the warehouses on the table. Here in the picture my student is composing the word “TV”.
3. Well, if that doesn't work, then here's Chamomile. I took the idea from the book by M.V. Gankina “Grammar First Aid Kit.
Spelling help." The book recommends the following: write the word at least five times and not in one direction and hang it on the wall. Let it hang along with other words.
(Picture from the book).
Then we take these leaflets with words off the wall (it is written in detail in the book), the teacher dictates them again, the students check each other.
I quote the chapter “The Sun and the Wall”: “This is another encounter with a dictionary word. Remember how many there are? There was a mistake ... - the sun - making the correct leaflet - hanging - staying on the wall - the ritual of removal - dictation - verification. Seven!"
This method definitely works with my students. Dictations have become much better.
I wish you all the best!
See all posts by soroka
Published September 27, 2018
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How to work out the correct spelling of words with children
Vocabulary dictation, spelling, tests - these words make the students goosebumps.
How can you help students remember all these words?
It's no secret that children love to play, and what they learn with pleasure remains in their memory for life. So where to start? The first, and most important, is to abandon the boring, monotonous rewriting of words. How then to teach? Fun, interesting and interactive!
1. Adapt your favorite games. Tic-tac-toe and the gallows will impress any child. And the spirit of competition will only spur the desire to learn words. If the group is quite large, we divide the students into 2 parts. One thinks of a word, the other writes it. Managed - earned the right to put a cross. No. The move goes to the opponents. And then they definitely will not miss their chance!
2. If you have active students, then Running Dictation 9 is in a hurry to help0063 . We prepare a list of words in advance, glue it in the farthest corner. The task of the students is to copy all the words correctly on the board. Whoever did it first, wins! If there are many students, we divide into teams and rejoice at success.
Unlike regular rewriting - it's fun, it's productive, you have to memorize the word, and not just copy it. In general, some pluses.
3. Have you ever heard of Whole Body Writing ? No? Then we go to you! Modern techniques, especially for children, suggest using as many organs of perception as possible. The essence of this method is that you need to draw a letter with your body, and the rest of the students need to guess this letter. For convenience, we prepare cards in advance with the words passed, the student chooses one, and with the help of his body “writes” this word. A lot of fun and learned words with a guarantee.
4. Every child wants to be a teacher ! What does it mean? And this means that you need to give him a chance to become a teacher, even if only for 5 minutes. We prepare words with errors and ask the children to correct these errors. Simple but effective.
5. Well, if the soul requires a dictation, then spend it. Not just a dictation, but Silent Dictation …shhh…don’t make a sound! Show students a picture or object and ask them to write a word.
The same dictation can be made active, we hang pictures or lay out objects, the task is to sign all the objects. At the initial stage, you can allow spying.
6. sorting helps to deal with complex letter combinations. For example, you need to work out the spelling of words with -ee and -ea, prepare a set of cards (a picture, plus words with a gap) and ask the children to insert the necessary letters. By the way, we will immediately solve at least 2 problems. Children will remember the spelling of words and will associate the word with a particular subject.
7. You must have heard that America is the only country in the world where a spelling contest is held. And we just have to hold the same competition with our students. Spelling Bee Challenge is a great opportunity to practice words and get to know the culture of the country! It can be done individually or in groups. In the allotted time, say 1 minute, you need to correctly spell as many words as possible.
