The spelling list comes home, and with it the questions. Which spelling words should a Year 1 child know? How many a week? And does look-cover-write-check, the routine many of us grew up with, still work? Here’s how spelling is taught now, Year 1 and Year 2 spelling words in phonics order, and a calm 10-minute routine that helps the words stick.
How spelling is taught now: sounds first
Spelling is the other half of phonics. When children read, they turn letters into sounds. When they spell, they do it the other way round: they hear the sounds in a word and write a letter or letters for each one. The Victorian Government’s phonics guide for parents says children “also learn to write words by breaking them down into sounds (encoding).”
The Victorian Curriculum 2.0 builds spelling up year by year:
- Prep (Foundation): “use knowledge of letters and sounds to read and spell consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) words” (VC2EFLY05), such as cat and sun, plus “some high-frequency words” like the and my.
- Year 1: “spell one- and 2-syllable words with common letter patterns” (VC2E1LY06), including blends such as bl and st.
- Year 2: “use knowledge of spelling patterns and morphemes to read and write words whose spelling is not completely predictable from their sounds, including high-frequency words” (VC2E2LY05).
In Victorian government schools, the Phonics Plus program teaches spelling alongside reading. Its lesson plans teach “handwriting, high-frequency words, dictation and reading fluency as well as phonic and word knowledge”. Dictation means the teacher says a word or sentence and children write it by listening for the sounds. If your child’s school is in another state or uses a different spelling program, follow the teacher’s list. The routine below works with any list.
Spelling words for Prep and early Year 1, in phonics order
Your child’s list will usually come from the sounds their class is learning, plus a few high-frequency words. These words follow the order of Victoria’s Phonics Plus sets for Prep. Each set only uses sounds from that set and the sets before it, so your child can spell every word by listening for its sounds.
| Set | New sounds | Words to try |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | s, t, a, p, n, i | sat, pin, tap, nap, tin, ant |
| 2 | m, d, g, o, c, f | dog, map, cot, fig, mad, top |
| 3 | k, e, r, u | red, sun, kit, rug, pet, cup |
| 4 | b, h, l | bed, hot, lip, bus, hut, lid |
| 5 | j, w, v | jet, web, van, jog, wig, vet |
| 6 | y, z | yes, zip, yum, yak |
| 7 | x, qu | box, fox, six, quiz, quit |
| 8 | ck, th, wh | duck, sock, this, then, with, when |
| 9 | ll, ss, ff, zz | bell, hill, miss, puff, off, buzz |
| 10 | ch, sh, ng | chip, shop, fish, much, ring, long |
| 11 to 13 | No new sounds: blends at the start and end | frog, step, clap, best, jump, hand, stand, plant |
Each set on KidStudy’s Sounds page also has a few heart words, the high-frequency words with a tricky part, such as the, said and was. Our post on heart words explains how to teach them. You can practise building words from each set’s sounds too, starting with Set 1.
Spelling words for Year 1
In Year 1 (Grade 1 at many schools), children spell longer words and meet new ways of writing sounds: two letters for one sound, like ee and oa, and split vowels like the a_e in cake. The curriculum asks children to “use knowledge of short vowels, common long vowels, consonant blends and digraphs to read and write one- and 2-syllable words” (VC2E1LY04).
This table follows KidStudy’s own Year 1 sets (Sets 14 to 20). They are our order, not the official Phonics Plus sequence for Year 1, so treat them as a guide and follow your child’s class if it’s working on different sounds.
| Set | Sounds | Words to try |
|---|---|---|
| 14 | tch, ve, nk, le | catch, match, give, pink, think, candle |
| 15 | ai, ee, igh, oa, oo | rain, feet, green, night, boat, moon |
| 16 | ar, or, ur, ow, oi | car, fork, turn, cow, down, coin |
| 17 | ear, air, er | hear, near, hair, fair, her, under |
| 18 | a_e, i_e, o_e, u_e, e_e | cake, time, bike, home, cube, these |
| 19 | ay, ea, ie, ou, oy | play, eat, pie, out, cloud, boy |
| 20 | ir, ue, ew, aw, ph | bird, girl, blue, new, saw, phone |
Spelling words for Year 2
By Year 2, spelling is about patterns as well as sounds. The curriculum names vowel digraphs, “less common long vowel patterns”, consonant blends and silent letters (VC2E2LY04), words that aren’t completely predictable from their sounds (VC2E2LY05), and word families built with prefixes and suffixes (VC2E2LY06).
| Pattern | Words to try |
|---|---|
| Long vowel patterns | light, high, sleep, rain, play, beach |
| Silent letters | knife, knee, write, thumb, lamb |
| Word endings | jumping, jumped, helpful, quickly, friendly |
| Words that don’t follow the sounds | one, once, only, friend, because |
What is look-cover-write-check?
It’s a simple routine for learning a word by heart:
- Look at the word and say it.
- Cover it with a card or by folding the page.
- Write it from memory.
- Check it against the original, and fix any letters that are wrong.
The old Victorian Curriculum named it: children used “strategies such as look-say-cover-write-check to learn an increasing number of high-frequency sight words” (VCELA184). The current Victorian Curriculum 2.0, in place since 2025, doesn’t mention it. It talks about sounds, spelling patterns and word parts instead.
Does look-cover-write-check work?
It helps with the words on the list, but sounding out helps more with new words. In one small New Zealand trial from the University of Waikato, 55 seven-year-olds spent 10 weeks learning spelling words either with look, say, cover, write, check, or with sound and spelling-pattern strategies. Both groups improved equally on the words they practised. But the strategy group did better on new words with the same patterns: the strategy approach “showed greater transfer to spelling new words with similar patterns”.
So the best approach combines both. Sound out the regular parts of a word first, then use look, say, cover, write, check for the tricky part that has to be remembered, like the ai in said.
A 10-minute spelling routine for home
- Say the word and use it. “Ship. The ship sailed away.”
- Count the sounds on fingers, as in the tip above.
- Write a letter or letters for each sound. This is dictation, the way Phonics Plus teaches spelling.
- Find the tricky part. If a word has a part that doesn’t match the sounds, put a little heart above it.
- Look, say, cover, write, check just the tricky words, twice each.
- Finish with a sentence. Say a short sentence using two of the words, and your child writes it.
Ten minutes, three or four nights a week, is plenty. A short list learnt well sticks; a long list rushed through doesn’t.
Why does my child spell words the way they sound?
Because their phonics is working. When a Year 1 child writes bote for boat or sed for said, they have heard every sound and picked a sensible way to write it. The curriculum calls these “plausible spelling choices”. Praise the sounds they got right first (“You heard all three sounds!”), then show the usual spelling. If letters like b and d are getting swapped too, our post on why children write letters backwards can help.
Make a printable spelling sheet
KidStudy’s worksheet maker turns any list of words into a Words sheet in Victorian Modern Cursive, the handwriting style most Victorian schools teach. For Prep to Year 2 each word gets a model, dotted letters to trace and a final row with a fold line, so your child can look, cover, write and check on paper. Try the sample spelling sheet, then change the words to this week’s list. For a quick daily reading routine to go with it, see phonics at home in 10 minutes a day.
Questions parents ask
What spelling words should a Year 1 child know?
Words with the sounds their class has learnt: one- and two-syllable words with blends, digraphs like sh and ee, and long vowels like the a_e in cake, plus a growing number of high-frequency words.
How many spelling words should my child learn each week?
Follow the teacher. For most young children, a handful of words that share a pattern, plus one or two tricky words, works better than a long list.
What is look-cover-write-check?
A routine for learning a word: look at it and say it, cover it, write it from memory, then check it against the original and fix any mistakes.
Does look-cover-write-check work?
It helps children learn the words they practise. A small New Zealand trial found that teaching sound and spelling-pattern strategies helped more with new words, so use both: sound out first, then use look-cover-write-check for the tricky parts.
How can I make spelling practice fun at home?
Keep it short and active. Write words in sand or with chalk, count sounds on fingers, build words with magnetic letters, and let your child test you sometimes. Ten minutes is enough.
Why does my child spell words the way they sound?
That’s phonics working. Your child is hearing each sound and choosing a sensible spelling for it. Praise the sounds they got right, then show the usual spelling.
Sources
- English Version 2.0: curriculum, Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority
- VCELA184 (Victorian Curriculum Version 1.0), Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority
- Phonics: a guide for parents and carers, Victorian Government
- Victorian Lesson Plans guidance: Phonics Plus, Victorian Department of Education
- By rule or by rote? Look, say, cover, write, check compared with phonological spelling strategies, Dymock and Nicholson, University of Waikato
