Phonics and spelling by grade

Education in Canada is set province by province, so these pages follow Ontario's curriculum, the one every publicly funded English-language school in the province uses. Pick your child's grade to see what it covers and which games match it.

• Kindergarten Year 1 (JK) ages 4–5
  Plays with rhyme and first sounds, and meets some letters and the sounds they make.
• Kindergarten Year 2 (SK) ages 5–6
  Teaches the 26 letter sounds and 5 letter pairs, blended into short words like "sat".
• Grade 1 ages 6–7
  Teaches every vowel spelling from "ai" to "igh", 4 prefixes, and the silent letters in "knee".
• Grade 2 ages 7–8
  Teaches 9 prefixes and 11 suffixes, including "-ion", "-able" and "-ness".
• Grade 3 ages 8–9
  Teaches 11 more prefixes, the endings "-ous" and "-ive", and word roots.
• Grade 4 ages 9–10
  Teaches the last new endings, "-ant", "-ent", "-ate" and "-ism", and 4 prefixes.
• Grade 5 ages 10–11
  Consolidates Grade 4's word-building; the curriculum sets no new spelling patterns.
• Grade 6 ages 11–12
  Continues Grade 5's consolidation; the curriculum sets no new spelling patterns.

Alberta and British Columbia set their own curriculum and are matched too, from the school-year picker inside the game. Ontario's is the most detailed of the three, which is why these pages follow it.

Looking for UK school years? See phonics and spelling by school year.

Where the words themselves come from, and what keeps an unsuitable one out: how the words are chosen.