2nd Grade Spelling Words

By second grade, silent e is practiced until it is automatic, in longer words with a blend or digraph in front (shake, smile, stone) and in words where the e also softens a c or g (price, stage, huge). Most of the work now is volume: more words, written from memory. Every vowel’s words and worksheets, with short-to-long pairs, are on the silent-e word list.

English words almost never end in v, so an e goes on the end even when the vowel stays short. Five, drive, stove and cave follow the silent-e rule. Have, give, love and glove carry the e only because of the v, and the sort puts the two kinds side by side. Come, some and done are three more exceptions with no v at all: they say a short u, and they are learned as words. Every silent-e exception is listed with the sound its vowel makes.

Use -tch right after a short vowel, and -ch everywhere else. Catch, fetch, itch and sketch each have a short vowel just before the /ch/ sound, so they take the t. Lunch, pinch and porch have a consonant in that spot, and peach, coach and teach have two vowels, so ch goes on its own. It is the same shape as -ck in first grade: duck, but milk and book. Much, rich, such and which break the rule and are learned as words.

Use -dge right after a short vowel, and -ge everywhere else. Badge, bridge, fudge and edge each have a short vowel just before the /j/ sound, so they take the d. Cage, page and huge have a long vowel there, and large and change have a consonant, so ge goes on its own; in cage and huge the e also makes the vowel long. English words almost never end in j, which is why every one of these ends in e. Common Core’s own example of spelling by pattern is cage → badge, and our guide sets tch and dge side by side.

Two vowels side by side usually spell one long vowel sound, and for long a, position decides which: ai sits inside a word (rain, paint) and ay comes at the end (day, play). Long e has two common spellings, ee and ea, with no rule to choose between them, so tree and team are learned as words. Long o’s oa works like ai, inside the word: boat, road, soap.

oi and oy spell the same gliding sound, and so do ou and ow, which is why these are called diphthongs. Position helps choose: oy comes at the end of a word and oi inside it (boy, coin). ow is the usual spelling at the end (cow, now) and ou inside (out, loud), though ow turns up inside some words too, like town. Watch for ow in snow and grow, where it spells long o instead.

An r after a vowel changes its sound, so these vowels are neither short nor long. ar is the sound in car and or the sound in corn. er, ir and ur all spell the same sound (her, bird, turn), so which one a word takes has to be learned word by word, and that is what the last two columns of the sort practice.

Three questions decide how -ing goes on. If the word ends in silent e, drop the e: make becomes making. If it has one short vowel and one final consonant, double the consonant: hop becomes hopping. Otherwise, just add it: jump becomes jumping. Hoping and hopping show why it matters. -ed follows the same rules (hoped, hopped), and our guide covers the doubling rule and dropping the silent e in full.

kn, wr and mb each hide a letter you do not hear, so these words are learned as small families rather than sounded out: nothing in the sound of knee says it needs a k. They usually come late in second grade, after vowel teams, and the silent letters section of our guide has the timing. Sorting by the silent letter is the practice that helps most.

These are the words second graders write most that no rule explains. Would, could and should share a silent l and are easiest learned together; because, friend, people, again and their are learned one at a time. How to teach sight words covers how.