Word List
Dge Words
Dge is three letters for one sound, the same sound as j, and it goes straight after a short vowel. Badge, fudge, bridge. Below are the dge words by family, the rule in one line, the dge-or-ge choice, and free worksheets.
- badge
- edge
- bridge
- fudge
- hedge
- judge
- dodge
- ledge
- nudge
- ridge
- smudge
- wedge
Dge is a trigraph, three letters that spell one sound, and the sound is just j. There is no d sound of its own in badge: it is b, a, dge, three sounds in five letters.
Dge exists because English words do not end in j. That is the whole reason there is a choice to make here, and it is worth telling your child, because it turns an arbitrary-looking spelling into a consequence of something they can check on any page of any book.
When do you use dge, ge or j?
Three options, and the vowel in front decides between the first two.
- dge after a short vowel: badge, edge, fudge, dodge, bridge
- ge after a long vowel: cage, huge, page, stage
- ge after a consonant: large, change, charge, orange
- j at the end of a word: never, in ordinary English words
In cage and huge the e is doing two jobs at once, making the vowel long and keeping the g soft, which is the same silent e your child already met in bike and kite.
The sheet that practises the choice lives on the 2nd grade spelling list, at -ge and -dge words, where the two endings sit in facing columns. This page does not repeat it. What this page has is the dge words themselves, family by family, which is what a child practises once the rule is understood.
Tch is the same rule with different letters: tch after a short vowel, ch everywhere else. Catch and match, but lunch and beach. The tch word list covers it, and teaching the two together saves learning the same idea twice.
What are the easiest dge words for a beginner?
Start with one family, and start with edge. Edge is the whole rime with nothing in front of it: two sounds, e and dge, in four letters. Every word in that family is edge with one more sound at the front, which makes it the clearest way in.
The order that works is roughly -edge, -udge, then -idge, -adge and -odge, easiest first. The last three are small families, and -adge in particular has only one word a child will meet.
A child is ready for these once short vowels are solid and they have already met the letter j. The only new thing in badge is that the last three letters make one sound.
How do you teach dge words?
One family at a time, and read before you write.
- Say the family out loud. Edge, hedge, ledge, wedge. Let your child hear that only the first sound changes.
- Show dge on one card, not three. Three letters, one sound, one card.
- Read the words, family by family, before mixing them.
- Then spell them. Say a word and have your child write it. Spelling is where the rule is really tested, because nothing in the sound says whether the d is there.
- Find them in a book. Bridge, edge and judge turn up constantly once a child is reading sentences.
Teaching one pattern at a time in a planned order is what the National Reading Panel’s 2000 report calls systematic phonics, and the panel found it helps children from kindergarten through sixth grade.
Helping your child spell dge words, and the mistakes to expect
Two mistakes, and they mean opposite things.
Writing bage for badge is the rule not yet learned. Your child has heard the word correctly and written the sound with the letters they know. Nothing about the sound tells them a d belongs there. Show them the pattern and practise one family at a time.
Writing cadge for cage, or largde for large, is the opposite, and it is a better sign than it looks. Your child has learned dge and is applying it everywhere, which is what learning a rule looks like before the exceptions land. The fix is the contrast rather than more dge practice: cage has a long vowel and large has a consonant in the way, so both take a plain ge.
A third one worth naming: writing j at the end of a word. Badj for badge is a completely sensible guess about the sound, and the answer is the convention rather than a rule about letters. English does not end words in j, so it uses dge or ge instead.
When do kids learn dge words?
Usually in second grade, after tch and after the consonant digraphs are solid. It arrives with the other end-of-word spelling patterns rather than with the letter sounds, because it is a choice about spelling rather than a new sound to learn.
Common Core’s own example for the standard is this rule. L.2.2.d asks second graders to “generalize learned spelling patterns when writing words”, and the examples it gives are cage to badge and boy to boil: apply the pattern to a new word, rather than remember a list. Where it sits among the other rules of that year is on the spelling rules guide, and the 2nd grade spelling list has it in the context of the whole year.
Which words end in -edge?
Edge is the whole family with nothing in front of it, which makes it the word to start on: two sounds, e and dge, in four letters.
Show that on the sound boxes before anything else. Edge takes two boxes, hedge takes three, pledge takes four. The dge box never changes, and a child who sees that stops trying to read the three letters one at a time.
The last two start with a blend. Pledge and sledge are four sounds in six letters, and putting them beside edge shows the difference that matters: pl and sl are sounds you can hear separately, and dge is one you cannot.
- edge
- hedge
- ledge
- wedge
- pledge
- sledge
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Printables for -edge Words
Which words end in -udge?
Every word here ends with the same single sound, spelled dge. Fudge, judge, nudge: only the first sound changes, which is what makes a family the fastest way in.
Judge is the word worth pausing on. It starts and ends with the same sound, written two different ways: j at the front, dge at the back. That is the convention in one word, and children remember it better than any explanation of it.
The last four add a blend at the front. Smudge, grudge, trudge and sludge are four sounds each, so the sound boxes give them four boxes and six letters, with the last three sharing one.
- fudge
- judge
- nudge
- budge
- smudge
- grudge
- trudge
- sludge
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Printables for -udge Words
Which other words end in -dge?
These three families are small, and one of them is a single word. English gives a young child three -idge words, two -odge words and exactly one -adge word, so they sit together rather than being padded into three thin sections.
Badge is the one to know cold. It is the word Common Core uses as its own example of a second-grade spelling pattern, in cage to badge, and it is the shortest way to show that a short vowel takes the d.
Bridge and fridge start with a blend, so they are four sounds in six letters, while ridge is three in five. Reading the three in a row makes the front blend obvious, which is the point of putting them together.
- bridge
- ridge
- fridge
- badge
- dodge
- lodge
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Printables for -idge, -adge and -odge Words
Which words have dge in the middle?
Dge turns up in the middle of a word as often as at the end, and the rule is the same one. In badger the dge follows a short a, exactly as it does in badge. The syllable simply carries on afterwards.
Clap the two syllables before reading the word. Badg-er, fidg-et, gadg-et. The dge sits at the end of the first syllable, which is why the rule still applies, and hearing the break is what stops a child stalling in the middle of a longer word.
Hedgehog and dodgeball are compound words, which makes them the easiest two here: each is two words a child already knows, stuck together, with the dge at the end of the first one.
- badger
- hedgehog
- fidget
- gadget
- budget
- dodgeball
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Printables for Dge In The Middle
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Mixed review: printables for the whole list
Every sheet below is built from the Dge Words above. No account, no email, no watermark. Start at the top and print one at a time. The sheets are in teaching order, and ten minutes on a single sheet is more valuable than working through a stack on autopilot.
What comes after dge words?
Dge is a spelling pattern rather than a new sound, so what comes next depends on which part your child found hard.
- If the sound was never the problem and the choice is, the -ge and -dge words on the 2nd grade list sort the two endings against each other.
- Tch is the same rule with different letters: tch after a short vowel, ch everywhere else. Catch and fetch, but lunch and peach. The tch word list has those families, and learning the two rules together saves learning one idea twice.
- Ck is the same rule again, one letter shorter: duck and back, but milk and desk. The ck word list covers it.
- The ge side of the rule is where silent e does two jobs at once, making the vowel long and keeping the g soft: cage, huge, page. The silent-e word list has that pattern on its own.
- If dge was the first three-letter team your child met, what a trigraph is puts it beside tch and igh.
If your child is still working out short words like cat and hop, go back to CVC words first. The dge rule is a question about the vowel in front of it, so the vowel has to be solid before the rule can mean anything.
Frequently asked questions
What are dge words?
Dge words are words where the letters d, g and e together spell a single sound, the same sound as j. Badge, fudge, bridge and judge are dge words. The three letters make one sound, so badge is five letters and three sounds: b, a, dge.
What is the dge rule in phonics?
Use dge straight after a short vowel, and ge everywhere else. Badge, fudge and edge each have a short vowel right before the sound, so they take the d. Cage and huge have a long vowel there, and large and change have a consonant, so those take ge on its own.
What is the rule for ge and dge?
They are two halves of one rule about what comes before the sound. A short vowel takes dge: badge, hedge, bridge, dodge, fudge. A long vowel or a consonant takes ge: cage, huge, large, change. In cage and huge the e is doing two jobs, making the vowel long and keeping the g soft.
Why do no English words end in j?
It is a spelling convention rather than a rule about sound, and it is the reason the dge choice exists at all. When a word ends with the j sound, English writes it dge or ge instead: badge, not badj. The same convention is why words do not end in v (have, give) or in i (pie, my).
How do you say dge?
Exactly like the letter j. There is no separate d sound and no g sound in badge: the three letters spell one sound, and it is the sound at the start of jam. If your child is saying each letter, cover the dge with your finger and say the single sound for them, then uncover it.
Is dge a trigraph?
Yes. Three letters spelling one sound is what a trigraph is, and dge qualifies, alongside tch in catch and igh in night. A digraph is two letters doing the same job. Either way a child reads it as one unit rather than as three letters.
Why does my child write bage instead of badge?
They have heard the word correctly and spelled the sound with the letters they know, which is the rule not yet learned rather than a mistake about the sound. Show them that after a short vowel the ge needs a d in front of it, and practise one family at a time.
What age do kids learn dge words?
Most children meet dge in second grade, after tch and after the consonant digraphs. Common Core's own example for second-grade spelling is cage to badge, in L.2.2.d, which is this rule exactly. Reading a dge word comes earlier than spelling one reliably.