Unit 1 — -tion
Say "shun", write t-i-o-n. The commonest ending in academic English.
Fourth grade
Fourth grade spelling words
Words get long this year and the useful unit stops being the letter. Eighty words in eight units, built around endings, roots, and the handful that simply have to be memorised.
Fourth grade 80 words 8 units
Take a unit
Unit 2 — -sion and -ture
The other two "shun" and "chur" endings, side by side for contrast.
Unit 3 — Double consonants in the middle
Two syllables, and the join is doubled.
Unit 4 — ough and augh
Four different sounds from one spelling. English at its worst.
Unit 5 — Roots: port, dict, spect
Carry, say, look. Learn three roots, unlock thirty words.
Unit 6 — -able and -ible
A whole word before it usually takes -able. Usually.
Unit 7 — Plurals of -y and -f words
y becomes ies, f becomes ves, and neither is optional.
Unit 8 — The words everybody gets wrong
No pattern. These are the ten worth over-practising.
The words
WordSentence read after it
action
The story is full of action.
station
We waited at the station for an hour.
motion
The rocking motion made her sleepy.
nation
The whole nation watched the final.
section
Answer every question in this section.
question
Put your hand up if you have a question.
direction
We set off in the wrong direction.
attention
Pay attention to the spelling pattern.
invention
The printing press was a great invention.
education
A good education opens doors.
Unit 2
division
We practiced long division today.
decision
The referee made a fair decision.
mission
The rescue mission lasted two days.
vision
Carrots are said to help your vision.
picture
Draw a picture of your house.
future
Nobody can predict the future.
nature
We study nature on Friday walks.
capture
The photograph did not capture the color.
mixture
Stir the mixture until it thickens.
adventure
The book is an adventure at sea.
Unit 3
better
My handwriting is getting better.
happen
What will happen if we mix them?
letter
I mailed a letter to my aunt.
dinner
We eat dinner at half past six.
summer
The pool is only open in summer.
follow
Follow the arrows to the exit.
pretty
She drew a pretty flower.
little
A little bird landed on the fence.
middle
Fold the paper down the middle.
bottom
The answer is at the bottom of the page.
Unit 4
thought
I thought the test was easy.
through
The path goes through the woods.
though
She kept running, though her legs ached.
enough
We have enough chairs for everyone.
rough
The sea was too rough for the ferry.
caught
He caught the ball with one hand.
taught
Ms. Patel taught us that song.
daughter
Their daughter starts school in September.
laughter
Laughter came from the next room.
naughty
The naughty puppy chewed a shoe.
Unit 5
import
We import bananas from warmer countries.
export
The country's main export is coffee.
report
Hand in your book report on Monday.
transport
Buses transport most of the students.
predict
Can you predict the next number?
dictionary
Look the word up in a dictionary.
verdict
The jury reached a verdict quickly.
inspect
Inspect your bike before you ride.
respect
Show respect for other people's work.
spectator
One spectator ran onto the field.
Unit 6
comfortable
These chairs are not very comfortable.
valuable
The ring was too valuable to wear.
reasonable
That is a reasonable price for a bike.
enjoyable
The trip was more enjoyable than expected.
possible
Finish as many as possible.
terrible
The weather was terrible all week.
horrible
The medicine tasted horrible.
sensible
Wear sensible shoes for the walk.
visible
The stars were barely visible.
flexible
Gymnasts have to be very flexible.
Unit 7
countries
Name three countries in Africa.
families
Several families share the garden.
stories
She writes stories about dragons.
berries
Do not eat berries you cannot name.
babies
The babies slept through the noise.
shelves
Dust the shelves before the visit.
thieves
The thieves were caught on camera.
halves
Cut the sandwich into two halves.
loaves
We bought two loaves of bread.
scarves
Hang the scarves on the hooks.
Unit 8
because
I stayed in because it rained.
friend
My best friend moved away last year.
believe
I believe you left it on the bus.
receive
You will receive a letter next week.
beautiful
The garden looks beautiful in May.
favorite
Blue is my favorite color.
necessary
A pencil is necessary for the test.
probably
It will probably rain later.
February
February is the shortest month.
library
The library closes at five.
Sheets you can print
Tick what you need. The packet prints in this order, one sheet per page, with nothing else on the paper.
Syllables replace sounds as the working unit
Up to third grade a child spells by moving through a word sound by sound. That stops working at education and adventure, which are too long to hold in one pass. Fourth grade is where the unit of attention has to become the syllable: ed-u-ca-tion is four small problems rather than one large one.
The practical technique is to clap or tap the syllables before writing, then write them in chunks with a gap between and close the gaps at the end. It looks slow and it removes most of the errors that come from a child running out of working memory two-thirds of the way through a word.
The shun endings, and how to tell them apart
-tion is by far the commonest way of writing the /shun/ sound and is the right default when nothing else is known. -sion turns up after l and n, and where the base word ends in d or s: divide becomes division, decide becomes decision. That last connection is the one worth teaching, because it turns a memory problem into a derivation.
-ture is the same trick with a different sound. Picture, future, capture, mixture — it sounds like "cher" and is never spelled that way. Naming the mismatch out loud is what heads off picher and natcher.
ough, augh, and giving up gracefully
Unit four is the worst pattern in English. ough has at least six pronunciations, and thought, through, though, enough and rough between them cover four. There is no rule, there has never been a rule, and pretending otherwise wastes a child’s effort on a search that cannot succeed.
Teach it honestly as a memory unit and lean on shape rather than sound. Grouping by rhyme — though and dough, rough and tough, thought and bought — gives visual memory something to hold, which is the only route that works here.
Roots, and the first payoff from Latin
port means carry: import, export, transport, report. dict means say: predict, dictionary, verdict. spect means look: inspect, respect, spectator. Ten words on this list are really three ideas, and a child holding the three can spell — and often define — words they have never met.
This is the first year that teaching roots returns more than it costs, and it keeps returning for the rest of school. The test to apply is whether the root explains the spelling as well as the meaning. port does, which is why these ten are worth the time and why a list of unrelated long words is not.
Common questions
How do I know whether a word takes -able or -ible?
The rough guide is that -able follows a complete English word — comfort and comfortable, enjoy and enjoyable — while -ible tends to follow a Latin fragment that is not a word on its own, as in terrible and visible. It holds about eighty per cent of the time, which makes it a good first guess rather than a rule.
Are spelling rules worth teaching at all, given the exceptions?
The ones that hold most of the time are, because a good default beats a guess. Doubling, soft c and g, and plural -ies all repay memorising. The ones with as many exceptions as cases — i before e is the famous example — cost more than they return.
Why is February so hard?
Because almost nobody says the first r. The word is stored from speech as "Feb-you-ary", so the spelling asks for a letter the child has never heard. The fix is deliberate mispronunciation while writing — Feb-ROO-ary — which is the standard technique for every word with a swallowed sound.
Should fourth graders be using spellcheck?
For final drafts, yes. But it cannot catch a real word in the wrong place, which is exactly the error that starts appearing now — their for there, then for than, quiet for quite. Teaching a child that spellcheck has one specific blind spot is more useful than banning it.