4TH GRADE SPELLING CURRICULUM
As the shift from phonics to morphology becomes increasingly important in the older grades, the 4th grade lists provide words with an emphasis on studying their origin and meaning to understand their spelling.
To prepare students for this shift, the word lists first aim to solidify students’ phoneme/grapheme pairs to increase word recognition and automaticity.
The 6 syllable types are reviewed early in the lists, as well as introducing a few new spelling generalizations.
The lists also provide grade-level appropriate, multisyllabic words that allow opportunities to study morphology, etymology, and practice syllabication of words.
Samples:
6 syllable types review:
- Vowel teams / diphthongs
- Schwa / short vowels (-ea as /ĕ/, -ou as /ŭ/, and -y as /ǐ/)
- Open / closed syllables
- Vowel-r syllables
- Homophones / homographs
- Consonant + le (-al, -el, -il)
Morphological Awareness and Word Origins Examples:
- -i with the long /e/ sound
- Noun, adverb, and adjective suffixes
- Greek and Latin roots, prefixes, and suffixes
💡 Teacher Tip 💡
There are extended learning lists that provide further opportunities for review and/or advanced concepts. If students do not need to review vowel teams, short vowels, and schwa, educators may choose to start with list 5 (skipping list 6 & 7) instead. Be sure to reference those patterns at least once or twice when they occur in other words.
Curriculum Progression View Lists
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