Spelling Bee Words by Grade

• 1st–5th grade
• 50 words per grade
• Free printables

Getting ready for a class or school spelling bee? Here are 50 practice words for each grade from 1st to 5th, in three levels: easy, medium and hard. Each grade has a practice quiz and a one-page printable list, plus tips on how to study and how to run a practice bee at home.

Spelling bee words by grade

How the levels work

• Easy (20 words): common words with patterns kids already know. Good for warming up and for the first round.
• Medium (20 words): longer words, vowel teams, silent letters and suffixes. Most bees are won and lost here.
• Hard (10 words): challenge words for the final rounds, often from other languages or with tricky letters.

If your child spells every easy word without trouble, move straight to medium. If even the easy list is hard, try the grade below first and come back in a week or two.

Choosing the right list

Use your child's grade as a starting point, but let their results guide you. Read ten words from the easy list aloud and ask your child to spell them. Nine or ten right? Move to the medium list. Fewer than six? Try the grade below for a week or two, then come back. Children grow quickly in spelling, and a list that feels hard today often feels easy a month later.

How to study

1. Little and often. Five to ten words a day for two or three weeks.
2. Say, spell, write, check. Spelling aloud and writing it down work together.
3. Find the tricky part. Most hard words have just one or two surprising letters. Make a memory trick for them, like those in commonly misspelled words.
4. Learn the rules. Many bee words follow spelling rules: doubling, drop the e, i before e.
5. Practice like the real thing. Stand up, say the word, spell it slowly and clearly, say it again.

How to run a spelling bee at home

1. Print the list for your child's grade, and the grade below for younger siblings.
2. The "pronouncer" reads a word, uses it in a sentence and reads it again.
3. The speller may ask for the word again, the definition or a sentence.
4. The speller says the word, spells it, and says it again.
5. A wrong spelling means the speller sits out the round, or gets a second chance if you prefer a gentler game.
6. Start with easy words and move to medium and hard each round. Celebrate the effort, not just the winner.

A home bee a few days before the real one takes the nerves out of standing up and spelling out loud.

What spellers can usually ask

Most bees let spellers ask the pronouncer a few questions before spelling. Check your bee's rules, but common ones are:

• "Can you say the word again?" Always worth asking if there's any doubt.
• "What does it mean?" The definition helps with homophones like flour and flower.
• "Can you use it in a sentence?" Context makes the word clear.
• "What part of speech is it?" and, in older grades, "What language does it come from?" Word origin hints at spelling: Greek words often use ph and ch, French words -ette and -eau.

Helping a nervous speller

Standing up in front of a room is often harder than the spelling. Practice at home in the same way the real bee works: stand up, say the word, spell it, say it again. A few family practice rounds make the real thing feel familiar. Remind your child that everyone misses a word eventually, and that the practice they did will help their spelling all year, whatever happens on the day.

More spelling practice

For weekly practice, see the spelling lists for 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th grade. You can also turn any list into flashcards with the flashcard maker (choose "My own words").

Last reviewed: November 11, 2026

Questions parents ask