5th grade · Spelling
What a 5th grade student learns in Spelling
Fifth-grade spelling centers on applying advanced morphological knowledge (Greek/Latin roots, prefixes, and suffixes) and multisyllabic orthographic patterns so students can accurately spell grade-level academic vocabulary. Students also master complex homophones, schwa spellings, and reference strategies at full grade-5 rigor.
The skills for the year
- 1Syllable-division patterns in multisyllabic words (VC/CV, V/CV, consonant-le)
- 2Spelling with common prefixes (un-, re-, dis-, mis-, pre-, non-, over-, under-)
- 3Inflectional ending rules: doubling final consonants and dropping silent e before -ed/-ing/-er/-est
- 4Derivational suffixes (-tion/-sion, -able/-ible, -ous/-ious, -ment, -ness, -ful, -less, -ly)
- 5Greek roots in academic words (photo, graph, tele, bio, geo, phon, meter, scope)
- 6Latin roots in academic words (aud, dict, port, scrib/script, spect, struct, tract, vis)
- 7Schwa vowel spellings in unstressed syllables of multisyllabic words
- 8Advanced r-controlled and vowel-team patterns in longer words
- 9Homophones and commonly confused pairs (affect/effect, accept/except, principal/principle, stationary/stationery)
- 10Words with silent consonants (kn, wr, gn, mb, bt, gh) in grade-level vocabulary
- 11Irregular plurals and plural possessive forms
- 12Endings -ance/-ence and -ant/-ent
- 13Compound words and basic hyphenation conventions
- 14High-frequency academic and content-area words across subjects
- 15Spelling strategies: analogy, morpheme analysis, and dictionary/reference confirmation
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