SpellChirp

45 words · ages 5–6 · Year 1

Year 1 common exception words: all 45 words

The words that break the phonics rules a child has just been taught. Every word is below — copy them, print the page, or tap once to have SpellChirp hatch the lot with definitions, audio and syllables.
  1. the
  2. a
  3. do
  4. to
  5. today
  6. of
  7. said
  8. says
  9. are
  10. were
  11. was
  12. is
  13. his
  14. has
  15. I
  16. you
  17. your
  18. they
  19. be
  20. he
  21. me
  22. she
  23. we
  24. no
  25. go
  26. so
  27. by
  28. my
  29. here
  30. there
  31. where
  32. love
  33. come
  34. some
  35. one
  36. once
  37. ask
  38. friend
  39. school
  40. put
  41. push
  42. pull
  43. full
  44. house
  45. our

Practise these 45 words, free

One tap puts the whole list in the nest. Each word arrives with a definition a child can read, audio and its syllables — then SpellChirp reads them out, marks the spelling and brings back the ones that went wrong. No account needed to start, and no advertising on either plan.

Add all 45 wordsPrint a practice sheet

Where this list comes from

The statutory word lists from the English National Curriculum (Department for Education, 2013), published under the Open Government Licence.

The words English primary schools are required to teach. Year 1 and 2 are the common exception words — the ones that break the phonics rules — and Years 3 to 6 are the statutory lists.

How to practise a list this long

Not all at once. Five to ten words a week is the pace that sticks; a list of a hundred is a term’s work, not a weekend’s, and a child who meets ten words five times learns more than one who meets fifty once.

Sight words are the ones that cannot be sounded out, so sounding them out is the wrong tool. Look at the shape of the whole word, say it, cover it, write it — then check the letters against the original rather than the sound.

Count a word as learned when it has been spelled correctly on three separate days. That is the rule SpellChirp uses, and it is roughly where a word stops needing to be looked up.