Word List
Schwa Words
The schwa is the quiet "uh" in the weak beat of a word, and it is the most common vowel sound in English. What makes it hard is that any vowel letter can spell it, so these words cannot be worked out by ear. They have to be seen.
- about
- salad
- zebra
- away
- alone
- balloon
- open
- seven
- garden
- begin
- belong
- between
- pencil
- fossil
- pupil
- divide
- direct
- instead
- lesson
- wagon
- lemon
- today
- police
- tonight
- circus
- minus
- cactus
- suppose
- upon
- until
The schwa is the vowel sound in a syllable nobody stresses. Say about the way you really say it, and the first beat almost disappears: it is not a long a, and it is not a short a either. It is a quick, flat “uh”. Tap the word to hear it.
Every word on this page is two beats with one weak beat, and the words are grouped by the letter that spells the schwa, not by the sound it makes. The sound is the same in all five groups. That is the whole difficulty, and the reason these words have to be learned by sight rather than sounded out.
More schwa words to sort
These fifteen schwa words are new, and none of them is on the list above. The pattern is the same: say the word the way you really say it, find the beat nobody stresses, and look at which vowel letter is written inside it.
- pasta
- cobra
- tuna
- oven
- model
- camel
- anvil
- tonsil
- lentil
- melon
- bacon
- apron
- album
- citrus
- virus
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Printables for More Schwa Words
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Mixed review: printables for the whole list
Every sheet below is built from the Schwa 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.