Comments on: It's Tricky is the title, here we go...

Question: It's Tricky is the title, here we go...

streetdreams — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 14:53:11 -0800

Help me think of tricky spelling words to challenge my daughter!

My 7-year-old daughter and I are working on spelling lessons. Mostly we've been working on word families and more basic stuff, but she's getting pretty good at those, so I'd also like to think of some harder words to give her.

What are some words that would be challenging for a second grader to spell? She tends to write things down the way they sound, so words like "people" that sound different than they're spelled would be especially good.

By: box

box — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 14:59:09 -0800

100 Most Often Misspelled Words In English

By: Static Vagabond

Static Vagabond — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 15:01:38 -0800

Perhaps have a look at the word of the day archive on dictionary.com. Should be a fair few unknown and tricky words she wouldn't be familiar with.

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 15:08:35 -0800

I'm sure people will give you scads and scads of these but my favorite word that I learned expressly for this purpose (dictionary game, you say it people try to spell it) though it may have been in fourth grade, was CHAMOIS.

By: theRussian

theRussian — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 15:14:12 -0800

ooo, I remember being in 2nd grade (so 7 or 8 ish) and not knowing how to spell "enough". My teacher told me to look it up in the dictionary, which I thought was particularly stupid advice given that I didn't know how to spell it in the first place. I was panicked I'd never find it until the boy sitting next to me told me how it was spelled. I remember feeling that I'd cheated somehow...

So, slight side anecdote, but: "enough"!

By: artifarce

artifarce — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 15:14:24 -0800

Hmm, similar to Jessamyn's there's also challis. Practice all the different sounds for ough? Exacerbate is fun to say and looks weird when you spell it out.

You could also give her words that have some double letters (necessary, terrific, broccoli, etc.) if nothing else so she'll do better at spelling them when she's my age.

By: tumble

tumble — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 15:16:40 -0800

Scripps National Spelling Bee Study Guides.

By: LobsterMitten

LobsterMitten — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 15:32:08 -0800

subtle

Also the official smartypants speller word: onomatopoeia. It's the word for words that sound like the thing they represent, like splat. Splat is an onomatopoeia because it's a word that sounds like what it is. It's fun to say ("onna-motta-pee-a"), and it's easy to memorize the spelling because if you break it up into groups of three letters, it sort of rhymes. o-n-o---m-a-t---o-p-o---e-i-a.

By: LobsterMitten

LobsterMitten — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 15:33:48 -0800

challis = a fabric, pronounced "sha-lee"
chalice = a drinking cup, pronounced "cha-liss"

By: reebear

reebear — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 15:35:25 -0800

The word "smorgasbord" took down half of my 4th grade class in a spelling bee once. To this day I still run to the dictionary every time I have to type it.

By: fish tick

fish tick — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 15:43:00 -0800

Two words that very few people can spell correctly: ukulele and rhythm.

By: Metroid Baby

Metroid Baby — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 15:46:44 -0800

"Pneumonia" fascinated my first-grade class.

And I still cannot quite get "camouflage" or "piranha," and I see a ton of people struggle with "fuchsia." man I really hope I got those right

By: cobaltnine

cobaltnine — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 16:05:11 -0800

I vividly remember an April 1st spelling quiz that had 'quohog' on it.

By: boo_radley

boo_radley — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 16:07:46 -0800

Yacht. Mnemonic. Jodhpurs.

By: geekyguy

geekyguy — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 16:17:55 -0800

beluga
spatula
vestibule

By: beachhead2

beachhead2 — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 17:14:50 -0800

I still remember trying to spell rhododendron in 2nd grade.

February.

Raspberry.

Love the title, BTW!

By: crinklebat

crinklebat — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 17:22:12 -0800

lachrymose took down every single one of the last ten people left standing at one of my middle school spelling bees. We all got to come back.

By: i_am_joe's_spleen

i_am_joe's_spleen — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 17:24:10 -0800

Phlegmatic was the one my standard 4 teacher (your 6th grade, I think) used to take me down a peg when I was a spelling smarty-pants.

By: acoutu

acoutu — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 17:24:54 -0800

You could go over one of these spelling poems and then do a quiz.

By: AsRuinsAreToRome

AsRuinsAreToRome — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 17:31:30 -0800

juice

By: Rock Steady

Rock Steady — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 17:31:31 -0800

I still get tripped up by "tongue" and "business" from time to time.

Why do I want to type it "buisness" every time? That doesn't even make sense!

By: LobsterMitten

LobsterMitten — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 17:41:23 -0800

surprise

Also this thread has some fun ones.

By: forthright

forthright — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 18:21:57 -0800

Three thoughts (but since I did not visit very one of the links suggested by others I don't know if these are duplications):

1) accommodations is a very frequently misspelled word, but one that is easy to understand if you just realize the Latin commodius root

2) I believe my elementary school education was too strong on memorization and too weak on the rules that go into the formation of word sounds (e.g., changes in vowel sounds related to adjoining consonants),

3) don't just think of words that would be in a formal dictionary, but also proper nouns such as major cities, famous people's names, Fourier transforms, Peugeot cars, etc.

By: JujuB

JujuB — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 18:25:08 -0800

"Bookkeeper" gets them every time, all those double letters.

By: bink

bink — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 19:31:32 -0800

I agree with artifarce. Knowing how to spell words with single letter/pair of letters is really useful. Necessary, tomorrow, satellite, recommend, desiccate, etc.

Also words that just plain look wrong even when they're right: supersede, iridescent, affidavit.

I remember winning a spelling bee in second grade with Indian. "CAPITAL I..."

I won another one in high school but don't remember any of the words involved. And I never got my prize. But I'm not bitter, twentysomething years later...

By: radioamy

radioamy — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 19:51:39 -0800

Definite. Wait, was that right? Also, rhythm.

By: XMLicious

XMLicious — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 20:10:11 -0800

occurance... the similarity to "current" always gets me and I try to spell it "occurrence".

medieval
naïve

By: urbanwhaleshark

urbanwhaleshark — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 20:28:07 -0800

Rhythm.

By: ilana

ilana — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 00:00:56 -0800

I would have won my district third-grade spelling bee had I known the correct spelling of "vacuum." I pass on this suggestion to save others from similar pain!

By: agentofselection

agentofselection — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 00:15:08 -0800

It sounds like you're working on "unfair words." Since these can't be solved with phonetics, she needs them as sight-words. Google "sight words" to get good lists of common, but unfair words. If, on the other hand, you want increasingly tricky phonetic words, don't be afraid to make them up. Ask her to spell crumbilstion, or read phrogment.

By: fearfulsymmetry

fearfulsymmetry — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 02:34:16 -0800

Necessary
Shoulder

... I can never get right for some reason

Cello

... I can but is supposed to be notoriously tricky (actually add 'notoriously' too)

And of course...

Antidisestablishmentarianism

By: Sparx

Sparx — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 05:06:23 -0800

Buy a scrabble dictionary - long lists of words organised by number of letters - and look out for interesting shorter ones and easier longer ones, then extend as her skills grow. Plus it helps for scrabble.

By: chan.caro

chan.caro — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 06:45:57 -0800

I remember "adjacent" being a difficult word back when I was in fifth grade.

Also, "onomatopoeia" - I always thought that was a fun one.

By: whimsicalnymph

whimsicalnymph — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 08:56:29 -0800

My sister couldn't spell "muscles" when she was that age.

By: Tapioca

Tapioca — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 09:51:13 -0800

Fluoride. Fluorescence.

By: dinger

dinger — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 11:20:16 -0800

reconnaissance

By: dizziest

dizziest — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 13:57:54 -0800

In our sixth-grade spelling bee, "tertiary" downed half the class. In the regional spelling bee in third grade, I got knocked out on "answerer." I got nervous about the W and stuck it in there too soon.

By: kamikazegopher

kamikazegopher — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 14:34:45 -0800

Separate. One of my teachers pointed out that separate has "a rat" in it.

By: naoko

naoko — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 14:53:57 -0800

Words that have knocked me out of spelling bees:
3rd grade: tomorrow (I spelled it with two m's. I still think my way looks better.)
8th grade: chassis (Hey, I don't read car magazines.)

By: XMLicious

XMLicious — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 18:36:16 -0800

You know what might be another interesting thing to do spelling-wise, would be to group imported words and place names by language. So that, for example, she can learn that in Italian "c" and "cc" can make a ch sound (arrivederci, ciao, Gucci) and in Chinese "x" makes a sh sound (Xinhua News Agency, Xinjiang province, Guangxi province).