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SpellingTestMaker

Fifth grade spelling words

Eighty words in eight units, built on roots rather than sounds. This is the year a child can start deducing a spelling instead of recalling it.

One word per line, or paste a comma-separated list. Numbering and bullets are stripped. A sentence after a pipe is read out with the word.

Your list, the answers and any name you type stay in this browser — nothing is uploaded. The built-in lists are compiled by spelling pattern, not issued by a curriculum authority. Check this before you rely on it. This spelling test maker is provided free and without warranty, and its results are not professional advice.

Grade 5 spelling words — Unit 1 — Greek roots: tele, photo, graph, scope

Name ____________________ Date ____________

Listen to each word and write it on the line. Put your name at the top first.

Grade 5 spelling words — Unit 1 — Greek roots: tele, photo, graph, scope

Name ____________________ Date ____________

Look at the word, cover it, write it, then check. Repeat any you get wrong.

  1. telephoneThe telephone rang during dinner.
  2. telescopeWe saw Saturn through the telescope.
  3. photographFrame the photograph for her birthday.
  4. autographShe asked the author for an autograph.
  5. microscopeLook at the leaf under the microscope.
  6. biographyI read a biography of Marie Curie.
  7. geographyOur geography lesson covered rivers.
  8. thermometerThe thermometer read thirty degrees.
  9. paragraphStart a new paragraph for each idea.
  10. symphonyThe orchestra played a short symphony.

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Grade 5 spelling words — Unit 1 — Greek roots: tele, photo, graph, scope

Score ______ out of ______

Date ____________

Every word in Grade 5 spelling words

80 words in 8 groups, grouped by pattern.

Unit 1 — Greek roots: tele, photo, graph, scope

Distance, light, writing, looking.

  1. telephone
  2. telescope
  3. photograph
  4. autograph
  5. microscope
  6. biography
  7. geography
  8. thermometer
  9. paragraph
  10. symphony

Unit 2 — Latin roots: ject, struct, scrib

Throw, build, write. Visible in every subject.

  1. project
  2. reject
  3. inject
  4. construct
  5. instruct
  6. structure
  7. describe
  8. prescribe
  9. subscribe
  10. manuscript

Unit 3 — -ance and -ence

Unstressed and identical to the ear. The list has to be learned.

  1. distance
  2. importance
  3. appearance
  4. entrance
  5. balance
  6. sentence
  7. difference
  8. experience
  9. patience
  10. silence

Unit 4 — The schwa syllable

The vowel nobody says. Sep-a-rate, choc-o-late, cam-e-ra.

  1. separate
  2. definite
  3. category
  4. chocolate
  5. camera
  6. general
  7. several
  8. memory
  9. family
  10. average

Unit 5 — Prefixes pre-, mis- and dis-

Bolt the prefix on whole — which is why misspell has two s.

  1. prevent
  2. preview
  3. prepare
  4. mistake
  5. misplace
  6. misspell
  7. disappear
  8. disagree
  9. discover
  10. dismiss

Unit 6 — Words that swap meaning

Not homophones. Near-twins that a spellchecker will never flag.

  1. principal
  2. principle
  3. accept
  4. except
  5. affect
  6. effect
  7. weather
  8. whether
  9. than
  10. then

Unit 7 — -ous, -eous and -ious

Full of. The extra vowel is the part that gets dropped.

  1. famous
  2. nervous
  3. dangerous
  4. jealous
  5. curious
  6. serious
  7. various
  8. gorgeous
  9. courageous
  10. mysterious

Unit 8 — Letters you cannot hear

Silent k, w, c, s, n — and the two that have no vowel at all.

  1. knowledge
  2. rhythm
  3. science
  4. scissors
  5. muscle
  6. island
  7. castle
  8. wrestle
  9. column
  10. autumn

What the practice modes do

Generated by the same code the buttons run, on the first few words of this list, so what is printed here is what you will get.

Word Letter scramble Missing letters Spelled out loud
telephonetenhlepoet_leph_n_T, E, L, E, P, H, O, N, E
telescopecspteeoeltel_sc_p_T, E, L, E, S, C, O, P, E
photographrhtpogohapph_t_gr_phP, H, O, T, O, G, R, A, P, H
autographrugopahtaa_t_gr_phA, U, T, O, G, R, A, P, H

Greek roots turn long words into short ones

tele is far, scope is to look, graph is to write, photo is light, micro is small. Telescope, telephone, photograph, microscope and paragraph are five long words that are really two short ones each, and a child who knows the pieces can spell all five plus a hundred more they have never met.

This is also where spelling starts helping with science and geography instead of competing with them for homework time. Thermometer is thermo plus meter, and once that is visible it stops being an eleven-letter memory test.

The vowel nobody pronounces

Say separate at normal speed and the middle vowel is not an a, an e or an i — it is the schwa, the flat neutral sound English gives almost every unstressed syllable. It carries no information about which letter to write, which is why sep-e-rate, def-i-nate and choc-late are the errors that dominate this year.

The remedy is to say the word wrongly on purpose. Sep-A-rate, def-i-NITE, choc-O-late, cam-E-ra: exaggerate the buried vowel while writing, so the spelling comes from the deliberate pronunciation rather than the real one. It feels ridiculous and it works better than anything else on this page.

Is it -ance or -ence, and why nobody can hear it

Distance and difference end in exactly the same sound and take different letters. So do importance and experience, balance and silence. The schwa strikes again, and this time there is no reliable rule at all — the split traces back to which Latin conjugation the word arrived through, which is not information a ten-year-old has any way to use.

Treat them as a straightforward memory unit, and give the memory something to work with. Write them in two columns, group them visually, and test them together so the choice is always live. A child who has seen the two columns side by side gets far more of them right than one who met the words scattered across a term.

Words that swap meaning when one letter changes

Principal and principle. Accept and except. Affect and effect. Weather and whether. Each pair is two real words, so nothing will ever flag the wrong choice — not a spellchecker, not a grammar tool, and not the child rereading it, because the sentence still makes a sort of sense.

Teach these as meaning pairs with a hook attached rather than as spellings. The principal is your pal; a principle is a rule; affect is an action and effect is the end result. The hook is the part that survives the six months between learning the pair and needing it in an exam.

Common questions

What is a schwa, in plain terms?

It is the lazy neutral vowel that unstressed syllables collapse into — the a in about, the e in taken, the o in memory. English gives it to almost any vowel that is not stressed, which is why so many spellings at this level cannot be worked out by listening.

How do I remember whether it is affect or effect?

Affect is nearly always the verb and effect nearly always the noun: the noise affects my concentration, the noise has an effect on my concentration. The exceptions are real and rare enough to leave until much later.

Are Greek and Latin roots worth teaching before high school?

Fifth grade is close to the ideal point. The words being met are long enough for roots to save real effort, and the child is old enough to hold an abstract pattern. Earlier than fourth grade it tends to become a vocabulary lesson dressed up as a spelling one.

My child spells these correctly on Friday and wrongly a month later. What now?

That is the normal decay curve, and the answer is spacing rather than more repetitions in one evening. Retest the same unit two weeks later and again after six. Three spaced retests beat twenty repetitions on one night by a wide margin.

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