Spelling Words by Grade: Free Lists for 1st–5th Grade

Last updated: June 2026 · Written by the Spelly team

Quick answer: Spelling words are best organized by the pattern a child is learning, not just by difficulty. Below are free, ready-to-use spelling lists for 1st through 5th grade, grouped by the skills typically taught at each level — from simple short-vowel words in 1st grade to prefixes, suffixes, and homophones in 5th. Use them for practice, and remember: short daily sessions where your child writes words from memory beat one long cram session.

How to use these lists

A few quick tips that make any word list work better, based on learning research:

Practice by writing from memory, not copying. Say the word, have your child write it, then check. Recall builds far stronger memory than copying.
Spread it out. Ten minutes across four days beats forty minutes the night before.
Notice the pattern. Each list below shares a pattern. Point it out — "these all have a silent e" — and the learning transfers to new words.

Grade levels are a general guide, not a rule. Children develop at different paces; use the list that matches your child's current skill, not just their grade.

1st Grade Spelling Words (ages 6–7)

Skills: short vowels, simple consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) words, common sight words, beginning blends.

Short a (CVC): cat, hat, bad, map, ran, bag, tap, sad, man, fan Short e and i: bed, red, pen, ten, big, pig, sit, win, lip, dig Short o and u: dog, hot, top, box, sun, bug, cup, run, mud, nut First sight words: the, and, you, was, are, for, can, said, see, play

2nd Grade Spelling Words (ages 7–8)

Skills: consonant blends and digraphs, long vowels (silent e), common vowel teams, simple endings.

Silent e (long vowel): cake, bike, home, cute, name, ride, note, time, made, hope Vowel teams (ai, ea, oa): rain, boat, read, team, coat, paint, beach, road, leaf, soap Digraphs (sh, ch, th): ship, chin, that, fish, much, then, wish, chop, with, bath Common endings (-ing, -ed): jumping, playing, walked, wanted, going, asked, looking, helped

3rd Grade Spelling Words (ages 8–9)

Skills: r-controlled vowels, two-syllable words, common prefixes and suffixes, plurals.

R-controlled (ar, or, er, ir, ur): car, star, corn, born, her, fern, bird, girl, turn, hurt Prefixes (un-, re-): undo, unhappy, unable, redo, return, replay, unlock, rewrite Suffixes (-ful, -less, -ly): helpful, careful, hopeless, useless, quickly, slowly, kindly Two-syllable words: rabbit, basket, sunset, pencil, market, garden, picnic, napkin

4th Grade Spelling Words (ages 9–10)

Skills: more complex prefixes and suffixes, -tion/-sion endings, double consonants, homophones.

Prefixes (pre-, dis-, mis-): preheat, preview, dislike, disappear, mistake, misspell, prepaid Suffixes (-tion, -sion): action, station, motion, vision, mission, nation, section, fraction Double consonants: running, swimming, beginning, dinner, summer, butter, happen, lesson Homophones: their/there, your/you're, to/two/too, hear/here, write/right

5th Grade Spelling Words (ages 10–11)

Skills: advanced suffixes, word roots, less common patterns, frequently confused words.

Greek/Latin roots (-graph, -port, -spect): telegraph, paragraph, transport, import, inspect, respect Advanced suffixes (-able, -ible, -ous): comfortable, valuable, possible, terrible, famous, nervous Silent letters: knight, knee, wrist, wrong, thumb, lamb, doubt, climb, listen, often Commonly misspelled: because, friend, beautiful, different, separate, believe, necessary, favorite

What to expect at each grade

Spelling develops in predictable stages (Gentry, 1982), which is why the lists build the way they do:

1st grade: spelling words mostly by sound. Expect phonetic attempts (frend for friend) — that's healthy at this age.
2nd grade: moving into spelling patterns, especially long-vowel spellings and vowel teams.
3rd grade: patterns plus the start of meaning-based spelling — prefixes, suffixes, syllables.
4th–5th grade: meaning-based spelling takes over — word parts, roots, and the trickier patterns. Spelling and vocabulary start to merge.

Remember the research: about 84% of English words follow predictable patterns (Hanna et al., 1966). Each list above is built around patterns precisely so your child learns rules that apply to many more words than just the ten or twelve listed.

Make your own lists (or use your child's school list)

These lists are a starting point. The most useful list of all is usually the one your child's teacher sends home — practiced well. And once your child masters a pattern here, the natural next step is finding more words that fit it.

(Doing that by hand takes time, which is part of why we built Spelly: it generates pattern-based or topic-based word lists on demand, reads each word aloud, and lets your child practice them across five game modes — or you can scan the actual list from school. It's free to start and made for ages 6–10. But these lists work with any approach, including a pencil and paper.)

Frequently asked questions

What spelling words should a 1st grader know? First graders typically work on short-vowel CVC words (cat, dog, sun), beginning blends, and common sight words (the, and, you, said). The focus is matching sounds to letters and spelling simple words by sound. See the 1st grade list above for examples.

What spelling words should a 3rd grader know? Third graders typically work on r-controlled vowels (car, bird), two-syllable words, plurals, and the first prefixes and suffixes (un-, re-, -ful, -ly). This is where meaning-based spelling begins. See the 3rd grade list above.

How many spelling words should my child practice per week? Most weekly school lists have about 10–15 words, which is a reasonable target. What matters more than the number is how they practice: short daily sessions, writing words from memory rather than copying, grouped by pattern. Quality and spacing beat quantity.

Are these lists aligned with Common Core? These lists reflect the spelling skills and patterns typically taught at each grade in US (Common Core) and UK (National Curriculum) classrooms — short vowels and sight words early, patterns in the middle grades, prefixes/suffixes/roots later. They're a practical guide; your child's school list is the best match for their specific curriculum.

My child is ahead of (or behind) their grade. Which list should I use? Use the list that matches your child's current skill, not just their grade. Spelling develops at different paces, and that's normal. If short-vowel words are easy, move up; if vowel teams are a struggle, stay there until they're solid. The patterns build on each other, so there's no benefit to rushing.

Sources

Grade-level patterns reflect typical US Common Core and UK National Curriculum sequences and the Words Their Way developmental framework (Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton & Johnston). Stage information from Gentry (1982); English spelling regularity from Hanna et al. (1966).

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Last updated: June 2026.