100 6th-8th Grade Spelling Words Your Middle Schooler Needs To Know

This compilation of sixth-eighth grade spelling words is a summary of the top words a child in middle school should know. In addition to the word list, I have also listed practice spelling activities suitable for tweens and teens.

6th-8th grade spelling words

100 Top Words For Spelling Practice: 6th-8th Grade

  1. accept
  2. ancient
  3. audience
  4. beliefs
  5. blown
  6. calendar
  7. caution
  8. ceiling
  9. combination
  10. community
  11. constitution
  12. contagious
  13. creature
  14. decision
  15. descendant
  16. disagreement
  17. distributed
  18. earliest
  19. echoes
  20. encouragement
  21. envelope
  22. equator
  23. especially
  24. excitement
  25. exercise
  26. experience
  27. familiar
  28. fierce
  29. forgiveness
  30. freight
  31. frighten
  32. gallon
  33. gesture
  34. graduation
  35. grief
  36. halves
  37. headache
  38. heroes
  39. hyphen
  40. ignore
  41. imagination
  42. immediate
  43. improvement
  44. ingredient
  45. inquire
  46. instruction
  47. invisible
  48. invitation
  49. jealous
  50. knowledge
  51. lawyer
  52. league
  53. listening
  54. location
  55. manner
  56. manor
  57. marriage
  58. meant
  59. mechanic
  60. medicine
  61. mixture
  62. muscle
  63. museum
  64. musician
  65. myth
  66. nationality
  67. noticeable
  68. occur
  69. official
  70. operate
  71. original
  72. patient
  73. penguin
  74. personal
  75. persuade
  76. physical
  77. pollution
  78. potatoes
  79. purchase
  80. quote
  81. ratio
  82. realize
  83. recycle
  84. referred
  85. rehearse
  86. relief
  87. relieve
  88. requirement
  89. rescue
  90. resources
  91. safety
  92. scientific
  93. scissors
  94. separately
  95. strength
  96. suggestion
  97. telephone
  98. threat
  99. unbelievable
  100. vegetable
6th-8th grade spelling words

The Science Of Learning To Spell

While rote memorization was a large part of how most of us learned to spell, the reality is that most of the process of spelling has to do with memorization and “sounding it out”.

In English, there are 26 letters, 44 sounds, and 250 or more different ways to spell those sounds. That means phonetic spelling will only get kids so far. Yet how many times have parents uttered “sound it out” to a child asking how to spell a word?

Mary Smart

Because of this, a varied approach is even more important as children get older.

6th-8th grade spelling words

Spelling Practice Activities For Older Children

Teaching spelling to older learners doesn’t have to be boring or routine. In fact, part of what makes teaching middle school so rewarding is the growing independence and desire on the part of our students to learn to spell proficiently. The current culture of social media and text messaging creates a natural desire and willingness to learn.

Memorization, exposure and direct instruction combined with interesting and age appropriate practice activities create the most successful outcomes for middle schoolers. My goal in teaching spelling to older learners is to incorporate as much real life, interest-led learning practice as possible.

For example, these spelling activities are perfect for 6th-8th graders:

  • Solving Puzzles (think Wordle with spelling words)
  • Cracking Codes
  • Texting spelling words to one another
  • Writing sample social media captions using 5 or more spelling words.
6th-8th grade spelling words

For more ideas and inspiration, take a look at my list of activities in Practicing Spelling With An Older Learner {includes a weekly lesson plan recap}.

Additional Spelling Word Lists

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