1st Grade Spelling Words

Use -ck right after a short vowel, and a plain -k everywhere else. Duck, sock, truck and clock each have a short vowel just before the /k/ sound, so they end in ck. Milk, desk and task have a consonant in that spot, and book and week have two vowels, so one k does the job. Either way the /k/ is one sound, which the sound boxes show: d, u, ck. The rule sits with the other early ones in our spelling rules at a glance.

After a short vowel at the end of a one-syllable word, f, l, s and z are doubled. That is why puff, bell, miss and buzz each end in two letters for one sound, and why the sort has a column for each doubled letter. A few short words break the rule, such as bus, yes and this. They are in the rule-breakers group below, and the FLOSS rule section of our spelling rules guide lists every exception.

sh, ch, th and wh each spell one sound with two letters, so ship has four letters and only three sounds, which is exactly what the sound boxes ask a child to count. th has two sounds of its own, voiced in that and quiet in thin. Our th word list has more of those, and the consonant digraphs section of the guide explains why these come before the rules.

Silent e usually arrives in first grade, first as a reading pattern and then as a spelling one. The e at the end makes the vowel say its name, so cap becomes cape and kit becomes kite. These eight words are a start. The silent-e word list has the rest: every vowel, short-to-long pairs like hop and hope, and worksheets for each, starting with long a.

Some of the commonest words do not follow the patterns above, so they are learned as whole words. Said, was, have, they, come and some are the ones first graders write most. The rest break the FLOSS rule: is and has end in one s that sounds like z, and yes, bus and this simply end in one s. How to teach sight words covers how to split a school list into pattern words and words like these.