Commonly misspelled words list
A commonly misspelled words list collects the words that trip up spellers year after year: because, friend, believe, separate, necessary. This page prints them in two grade bands, seventy to a hundred words each, with the classic traps first, for a spelling folder or a wall.
Free printable PDF, 3rd grade to 6th grade.
One page, black and white, prints the same every time.
What is on the sheet
The table below is the sheet as it prints with these options: 3rd and 4th, No.
The classic traps 29 words
| address | awful | disappoint | knew | until |
| almost | balloon | February | often | Wednesday |
| already | beginning | finally | really | weird |
| also | believe | friend | suddenly | welcome |
| always | careful | happened | together | whole |
| answer | different | island | tomorrow |
Grades 3 and 4 75 words
| again | first | nothing | something | two |
| another | found | off | sometimes | upon |
| around | from | once | special | very |
| beautiful | girl | other | started | want |
| because | goes | outside | sure | was |
| before | half | people | their | watch |
| birthday | heard | pretty | there | were |
| brought | house | probably | they | where |
| caught | know | right | though | which |
| could | laugh | said | thought | while |
| does | listen | scared | threw | would |
| doesn't | many | school | through | write |
| enough | minute | should | today | wrote |
| every | money | since | trouble | young |
| favorite | more | some | truly | your |
Where the words come from
The classic traps are the words with a double letter that gets dropped (beginning, tomorrow), a single letter that gets doubled (until, always), or a silent letter or odd vowel that no rule predicts (friend, Wednesday, island). They bite every grade and sit at the top of both lists. The grade 3 and 4 list is the everyday words a child writes constantly and misspells anyway: because, their, which, thought. The grade 5 and 6 list is the longer academic words with a hidden trap, separate, definitely, necessary, receive, that teachers mark year after year.
Both bands are built from the words that appear on school lists of frequently misspelled words for those grades, not from a dictionary; a word is here because children get it wrong.
Using the list
Do not drill the whole list. Have the child read it and mark the ten they are unsure of, then work on those with look, say, cover, write, check: the commonly misspelled words worksheet on the site prints that drill. For each word, name the trap in a sentence, "separate has a rat in it", "friend ends with end", and the trap becomes the memory. Add the child's own repeat offenders from their writing to the bottom of the page.
Common questions
- Which list should my 4th grader use?
- The 3rd and 4th grade list, and the classic traps at the top of it. Move to the 5th and 6th list when most of the first is spelled correctly in writing, not only on a test.
- Why are words like "because" on a list for older children?
- Because it keeps being misspelled. Frequency of error, not difficulty, is what puts a word on the list.