Spelling Word Lists

Grade Level: Grades 5-8

The key to a suitable spelling curriculum is a basic word list, carefully selected and properly graded. Giving too much attention to little-used words and too little attention to frequently used words results in poor spelling ability.

Three categories of words comprise theses word lists:

1. Words written by both children and adults like careful and beautiful

2. Words of high frequency in children's writing but of low frequency in adult writing, such as kitten and arithmetic

3. Words of high frequency in adult writing but of low frequency in children's writing, for example, budget and brethren.

Writing vocabularies for adults include more than five thousand words. A spelling curriculum can handle only two to three thousand words. More than three thousand words are included in these lists for grades 5 to 8.