Looking for ways to help your child improve their first-grade spelling skills?
You’ve come to the right place.
In today’s article, we’re going to delve into the world of spelling books aimed explicitly at first-grade students. We’ve scoured the length and breadth of the World Wide Web to find the very best first-grade spelling books that will help your child to boost their spelling and writing ability.
The Best Workbooks To Improve First Grade Spelling
The importance of spelling can never be understated; therefore, doing absolutely every you can to ensure your child’s spelling (and overall) development is as smooth a ride as possible is imperative.
While spelling books alone aren’t a magic route to success, they are an invaluable tool for boosting literacy and development and play an essential role in your child’s spelling journey. So, without further ado, let’s take a look at some of the best books to improve spelling in first-grade students.
Sight Words and Spelling Workbook (Ages 6-8)
As the title implies, this book has been designed to help first-grade children learn to spell and write sight words. The layout and activities contained within this book will go a long way to helping your child learn how to read and write high-frequency words, i.e., words that make up a large proportion of words in children’s books. Acquisition of the ability to recognize, understand, and ultimately, write sight words will help provide a solid reading foundation on which your child can expand their vocabulary. After all, once sight words are mastered, learning more complex words becomes a far easier task.
The book contains fundamental spelling and writing activities, combining word tracing with fun activities and page designs to ensure your child stays fully engaged during the learning process.
In short, this spelling workbook from Modern Kid Press is a fantastic choice for both first and second-grade kids. With an average rating of 4.8/5 from over 1,740 reviews and priced at an exceptionally reasonable $5.99, it’s no wonder that this book is a go-to for thousands of parents out there.
Plus, if purchased when you’re child is in first grade, you’re effectively getting two books for the price of one!
Spelling and Writing For Beginners
This book was created with one thing in mind: to help first-grade students accrue essential spelling and writing skills while having lots of fun at the same time! Having fun is an integral part of a child’s development; if they’re not stimulated or engaged, they’ll quickly become bored, which will have an adverse impact on their ability to learn; therefore, ensuring all learning is as fun as it possibly can be is always the way forward.
Luckily, this offering from Carson-Dellosa Publishing combines effective learning activities, puzzles, and games with bright, colorful pages and engaging artwork – a sure-fire way to keep first-grade kids engaged at all times!
Furthermore, it also comes with 140 stickers and an incentive chart, both of which are handy additions to improve engagement and excitement for learning to write and spell.
With an average rating of 4.7/5 from in excess of 760 reviews, it’s easy to see why this is such a popular choice amongst parents with children in first-grade.
DK Workbooks – Spelling: Learn and Explore (First Grade)
Dorling Kindersley’s workbook series has been developed in conjunction with leading education experts to build both understanding and confidence. They have been designed to help children understand key concepts using fun and exciting exercises and activities – and this first-grade spelling workbook does precisely that.
DK’s Spelling: Learn and Explore (First Grade) has been designed to complement what your child learns at school, helping your little one solidify and improve their word-formation and overall spelling skills.
The book itself is jam-packed with exercises, activities, and challenges, promoting repetition in conjunction with cumulative learning – two key aspects of learning that ultimately lead to mastery. The layout of this workbook is easy to understand and follow. It covers numerous areas of spelling, including reading basic sentences, syllables, vowel sounds, irregularly spelled words, and much, much more. Plus, there are additional sections for parents that includes answers, spelling tips, and advice to share with your little one.
Highly rated at 4.7/5 stars, this offering from one of the world’s biggest publishers is undoubtedly worth buying.
Jumbo Language Arts Success Workbook: First Grade
There’s a good reason why the author of this book utilized the word ‘Jumbo’ in the title…it truly is a mammoth workbook! Not only does this first-grade workbook cover spelling, but it also contains activities to help boost reading skills and expand vocabulary. In effect, this is three books in one, which undoubtedly makes it a worthwhile and cost-effective purchase for parents with children in first grade.
This offering from Sylvan Learning is a whopping 320 pages in length and is brimming full of kid-friendly, teacher-reviewed exercises and activities. It is a fantastic choice for first-grade learning as it facilitates the building of a strong foundation of language art skills, which are needed for first-grade students to mature into successful readers.
The book contains over 300 brightly colored and engaging pages designed to help your child become familiar with foundational concepts such as: double letters, word endings, letter sounds, long and short vowels, animals, colors, and reading comprehension concepts. In short, it will help your little one to learn efficiently and effectively, and, most importantly, have fun while doing so!
What’s more, Sylvan Learning Workbooks won a NAPPA (National Parenting Publications Award) Honours Award, making them renowned in the field of children’s learning books. Their proven system helps to inspire children to ‘catch up, keep up, and get ahead’, so it’s no wonder that parents nationwide use and recommend their workbooks, not only for first-grade children but for kids of all ages. Their workbooks feature fun and engaging activities, stories, and games designed to reinforce the fundamental skills required to help children reach their full potential.
Building Spelling Skills: Grade 1
Published all the way back in 2002, this offering from Evan-Moor is another highly rated spelling workbook. Although it might be easy to dismiss a book published nigh-on twenty years ago, the activities and exercises contained in this book are still 100% relevant to learning in 2020 (and beyond) and will certainly help first-grade students to improve their spelling ability.
This 160-page book is split into 30 weekly sections, showing children how to spell, pronounce, and understand the meaning of the 198 words over the course of 30 weeks. The weekly lists include both short and long vowels, past and present tense words, and plural words too. To provide a gradual transition into learning to spell, the first half of the book provides five weekly spelling words, whereas the latter half contains eight words for your child to learn each week.
To help your first-grade child master how to spell and understand the 198 words in this workbook, there are a myriad of fun games, puzzles, drills, and activities to ensure they have fun while they learn!
With a rating of 4.7/5 stars from in excess of 265 reviews, this workbook is highly recommended.
180 Days of Spelling and Word Study: Grade 1
Shell Education’s 180 Days Series is the perfect complement to what your first-grade child learns at school.
Why?
Because it furnishes your child with daily spelling practice for every single day of their school year, helping them to master spelling rules, patterns, and conventions. Split into weekly sections; this first-grade spelling workbook can be seamlessly incorporated into both the classroom and home learning.
The fun and engaging weekly exercises and activities help first-grade students to learn new words and tackle concepts such as sentence completions, sentence types, word sorting, verb tenses, plurals, homophones, synonyms, and antonyms.
Rated at 4.7/5 stars from over 175 reviews and coming with additional digital materials to further advance learning, this offering from Shell Educations is a fantastic choice for parents seeking to boost their first-grade child’s spelling skills.
Spectrum Spelling: 1st Grade
Spectrum is one of the leading educational workbook publishers in the US; therefore, it’s no surprise that their first-grade spelling workbook appears on this list. For the last 20 years, Spectrum has partnered with teachers and parents to help children achieve and surpass their learning goals.
This 184-page first-grade spelling workbook contains 31 lessons and covers topics such as letters, color words, vowel sounds, and the beginning and ending of words.
The learning process is centered around progressive lessons that encompass all of the fundamentals of spelling, including but not limited to letter recognition, sight words, phenomes, phonics, long vowels, and short vowels, and is designed to nurture vocabulary expansion and the skills required to spell with precision.
Furthermore, this workbook will also help boost proficiency where core spelling and reading concepts are concerned, such as understanding common spelling patterns; identifying, isolating, and pronouncing vowels (initial and medial); how to spell unknown words phonetically, and how to pronounce the final sound(s) of one-syllable words.
As is to be expected from Spectrum, the learning process involves full-color, fun, and engaging exercises and activities, including puzzles, brainteasers, riddles, tracing, and other word-based games.
With a rating of 4.7/5 from over 300 reviews, it’s clear that this workbook is well-liked by parents, teachers, and most importantly, children alike. Spectrum’s books really do support your child’s educational journey at every step of the way.
School Zone: Big Spelling Workbook– Grades 1 to 3
School Zone’s Big Spelling Workbook is a mammoth spelling book that has been designed for children in grades one, two, and three. Crammed full with over 300 exercises, games, and activities, this spelling workbook is certain to keep your child engaged and learning throughout first, second, and third grades, helping to improve a wide array of language skills, including spelling patterns, word recognition, letter sounds, and much, much more. The colorful and child-friendly illustrations will be a surefire hit with kids, boosting engagement and ensuring learning is as fun as it possibly can be!
As with all home spelling workbooks, this offering from School Zone has been specifically designed to complement and reinforce school-based learning but can also be used to accompany homeschooling methods. The exercises and activities included in this spelling workbook revolve around the use of handwriting rather than typing on a computer; therefore, your child will boost their handwriting skills in addition to their spelling ability.
School Zone has been around for over 40 years and has been used by parents and teachers the world over to promote learning. The learning materials they create help children develop the most essential skills using proven, engaging, and enjoyable exercises, activities, and games. On Amazon.com, this spelling book has an average rating of 4.8/5 stars from a whopping 1,360 reviews, which isn’t a surprise given the quality of the content.
School Zone: Spelling Puzzles Workbook – First and Second Grades
School Zone’s Spelling Puzzles workbook for six to eight year old perfectly complements their Big Spelling Workbook mentioned above. This 61-page spelling puzzle book contains numerous pules, codes, and riddles to help your first-grade child reinforce essential spelling skills across several areas including, but not limited to compound words, word beginning and ending sounds, vowel sounds.
There is no doubt that this workbook can help your first-grade child master the basics of spelling. They’ll learn which letters come first, next, and last, how letters work together, how to sound out letters and words, and reproduce word patterns – all essential components of both reading and writing. But it doesn’t only cover the fundamentals; it also focuses on more challenging concepts, such as spelling patterns and letter combinations, which may make your child’s transition to second-grade learning much smoother.
Once again, there is a focus on the written word rather than typing on a keyboard, so it gives your child the opportunity to hone their handwriting skills. This helps to ignite areas of your child’s grey matter that not only help to reinforce what they’ve learned but also think of new ideas.
In short, this puzzle-based spelling workbook is the perfect accompaniment to both school-based learning and home-based learning. Rated at 4.7/5 from over 400 ratings exemplifies just how good this first-grade spelling workbook is.
Sylvan Learning – 1st Grade Spelling Flashcards
Ok, so this isn’t technically a first-grade spelling book, but these flashcards from Sylvan Learning will certainly help your first-grade child improve their spelling skills and expand their vocabulary. Designed for learning in any environment, spelling flashcards are an exceptionally useful tool for boosting spelling ability and learning concepts such as sight words, vowels, consonants, contractions, and (various types of) word endings.
This flashcards pack contains 230 words to help improve first-grade spelling and phonics, in addition to ten blank cards to allow you and your child to add personal words, such as names, their favorite toys, foods, and household objects…or anything else they’d like to add! Plus, each card has a colorful illustration to help your child learn word-image association, which can help to boost early analytical and reasoning skills.
If you’re looking for something different from first-grade spelling workbooks, flashcards are a superb choice to complement learning. They can be used anywhere at any time, whether you’ve got five minutes or an hour.
100 Words Kids Needs To Read By First Grade
Although only a short book at 32 pages, this spelling workbook from Scholastic is a great way to reinforce 100 of the most common sight words before and during first-grade. Not only does this first-grade spelling book provide 100 sight words, but it also helps your child master comprehension, writing, and spelling of each of these words through games, puzzles, and exercises; filling in blanks; relevant stories and sentences; proofreading practice, and sorting activities.
With an average rating of 4.6/5 stars from in excess of 2,100 reviews, this offering from Scholastic is a favorite with parents and children alike!
Highlights: First-Grade Phonics and Spelling Workbook
Highlights have been publishing educational books for nigh-on 75 years, making them one of the world’s leading learning book publishers. Therefore, it’s safe to say that any books or educational learning tools from their vast range of products are tried and tested, and most importantly, can be trusted to promote development and boost your child’s academic skills and ability. Highlights’ range of educational books has earned them several awards, including the Teachers’ Choice Award 2020, the Family Choice Award 2019, and two PAL (Play Advances Language) Awards.
This specific workbook is part of the ‘Learning Fun’ workbook series – a series that focuses on a single subject area in each book. Like all of the other books in this range, First-Grade Phonics and Spelling is brimming full of age-specific exercises, activities, games, and puzzles to help build spelling and phonics skills in an engaging, fun, and enjoyable way.
It will help your first-grade child to master age-appropriate phonics and spelling, helping them to lay the foundations for future learning. The combination of humor, puzzles, playful art, and bright colors will keep your child engaged and entertained every time this book comes out. Rated at 4.6/5 stars on Amazon, this first-grade spelling workbook is a highly-rated book that complements school-based learning perfectly.
Spectrum: Sight Words First Grade
Given how highly-rated and effective Spectrum’s range of educational books are, it should come as no surprise to see another of their first-grade spelling books in this list. As you’ve probably figured out from the title, this book is centered around sight words for first-grade students.
With over 300 high-frequency words in 160 pages, additional flashcards, and a wide range of fun and engaging activities, this workbook will help to develop and reinforce language fluency, spelling, and writing skills. Everything is laid out in an easy-to-follow and easy-to-understand manner, encouraging your child to boost not only their spelling skills, but also their problem-solving and handwriting abilities.
As is to be expected with Spectrum workbooks, this particular workbook is rated highly by almost 300 Amazon customers, with an average of 4.8 stars out of 5.
The 200 Words Kids Must Read By 1st Grade: Sight Word Practice Workbook
As you’re no doubt well aware, sight words are a crucial component of learning to spell, read, and write; therefore, it’s essential that your child learns as many of these as possible by the end of first grade.
Luckily, the Brighter Child Company has created a first-grade spelling workbook centered solely around sight words (200 to be precise) and is designed to help your child master comprehension, writing, spelling, and usage of 200 high-frequency words.
It covers all of the sight words your child must know by the end of first grade and teaches them how to comprehend, read, and write each of these 200 words using fun and engaging illustrations and pictures.
Spelling and Writing for First Grade
All of the first-grade spelling workbooks listed in this article have been published by big publishing houses or those that have been around for many, many years. However, it’s not only the tried and tested educational publishers that produce highly effective spelling workbooks for first-grade children, which is exemplified perfectly by Emma Byron’s Spelling and Writing for First Grade. Although this spelling workbook is relatively new and only has a single review, the content is first-rate and will undoubtedly help your child to improve their spelling and writing skills.
Containing over 100 worksheets that are both fun and easy to follow (the key for any educational book for young children!), it really is an all-inclusive resource that places specific focus on creative writing to help your child become a fluent speller and writer. An underrated first-grade spelling workbook that all parents of a child in first grade should consider.