Patterned and Irregular Word Spelling Worksheets

Related ELA Standard: L.1.2.D

Core Standard
Answer Keys Here

The phonetic skill of decoding words allows students to break words into pieces and sound them out. This makes the words very approachable from a spelling perspective. There are many words that buck this trend and cannot be sounded out. We call words that don’t follow normal decoding structure irregular. Irregular words often stump students and give spelling bee champs a bit of a headache. The worksheets below will provide students will a high level of practice on this skill.

Approaches to Spelling Worksheets To Print:

Road Trip – This is a group or classroom activity to get students using the skill.

Name the Word Family – Give Sam some help with his commas. He is a bit forgetful at times.

Bear-y Nice to Meet You! – You wrote your aunt a letter, but forget all the commas.

Use Your Brain! – Make each sentence correct by adding punctuation, as needed.

Name that Word Family! – Even good old Farmer Joe forgets how to use his symbols.

School House – Turn to your neighbor, write down their name in the first blank, and ask them what there favorite foods are.

Camping in the Woods – Grace is going grocery shopping. Each Isle has three items that she needs.

Football Practice – Write your three favorite things to do at the park in the blanks in the sentence below.

Playing with Cats – The rodeo was in town, but you missed it! Let's make sure that doesn't happen again.

You be the Detective! – This cloud is raining dates! Draw raindrops around the dates that use commas correctly.

Playing at the Park – The dates of each baseball game are written on the baseballs. Color the baseballs green if the comma is in the right place.

Can You Find the Sight Words? – Fred made a list of dates, but something doesn't quite look right.

Fun at the Carnival – : Sarah was writing down all the important dates on one calendar, but it looks like she forgot to add the commas in the dates.

A Day at the Beach – : These dates literally fell off the calendar! Rearrange them in the proper order beginning with the first of January and ending with the thirty-first of December.

Treasure Hunt – Tina made a list of important dates. See if she needs a hand.

What Are Patterned and Irregular Word Spellings?


Regular Words


When young children are just starting to read and write, they are taught the language with the help of sounds. Phonology is used to make their minds clear of confusions and understand the concept of alphabets, letters and words. Phonology is a process in which you use the sound structure of a word to spell it. It uses the sounds of vowels and consonants. When children are young, they are taught the sounds of vowels. In order to make it less confusing for them, they are only taught the one certain sound of vowel and one certain sound of the consonant. Phonology helps them spell out regular and patterned words.


Regular words or patterned words are those words that contain certain sounds of the vowels. They follow the regular pattern of the sounds. These words do not contain any ambiguity regarding the sound structure. They are spelled the way they sound.


For example, the letter A produces a certain sound that can be heard in words like flag, strap, bag, camp, grass, and last. The letter E produces a sound that can be spelled like left, next, sent, help, and bend. The letter ‘I’ produces a unique sound in words that can be spelled like kite, fight, time, shift, and trick. The sound of the letter ‘O’ goes like drop, stop, frog, clot, etc. Lastly, the letter ‘U’ makes a sound that is spelled like stump, crust, and blunt.


Irregular Words


Irregular words are most difficult to spell. They do not follow the rules of phonology. Irregular words cannot be spelled by focusing on the sounds and syllables. In fact, these words should be memorized the way they are.


For example,
friendly
Christmas
laugh
heart
ocean

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



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