5th Grade Spelling Words
Fifth grade covers the words adults still get wrong: accommodate, conscience, maintenance, bureaucracy, camouflage.
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5th Grade Spelling Words — full list (50 words)
- accommodate
- acknowledge
- acquaintance
- acquire
- aggressive
- apparent
- appearance
- assassination
- basically
- changeable
- colleague
- committed
- congratulate
- conscience
- conscientious
- controversy
- desperate
- dilemma
- disastrous
- embarrass
- environment
- exaggerate
- excellence
- existence
- experience
- foreign
- forty
- fulfill
- gauge
- genius
- government
- grammar
- guarantee
- harassment
- height
- hierarchy
- humorous
- ignorance
- immediate
- independent
- indispensable
- intelligence
- jewelry
- judgment
- knowledge
- liaison
- license
- lightning
- maintenance
- maneuver
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Printable 5th grade spelling words — the commonly misspelled list, ready to cut out.
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How to play
- Focus on the small number of rules behind most misspellings: double consonants, schwa vowels, and borrowed spellings.
- Use memory hooks for the worst offenders: accommodate has two cots and two mattresses (two c, two m).
- Have them proofread their own writing and count misspellings — self-editing is the 5th grade skill.
- Test with full sentences. Isolated word lists stop predicting real spelling ability around this age.
FAQ
What are the most commonly misspelled 5th grade words?
Accommodate, conscience, definitely, embarrassment, maintenance, recommend, separate and government.
Is a spelling test still useful in 5th grade?
Yes, but sentences are better than isolated words — spelling in context is what actually transfers to writing.
How can I remember accommodate?
It has two cots and two mattresses: two c and two m. Memory hooks beat repetition for irregular words.