1st Grade spelling
1st Grade R Blend Words
First grade r blend words: from, great, free, friend, drive, green, train, brown. Play hangman with the list, read it with scores, or print a sheet.
Read the spelling list
The pattern: Words that start with br, cr, dr, fr, gr, pr or tr, where both consonant sounds are heard.
An r blend is a consonant followed by r, in which both sounds can still be heard: br in brown, cr in cross, dr in drive, fr in free, gr in green, pr in price and tr in tree. This list gathers one-syllable words that start with one of those seven blends: from, great, free, group, try, true, friend, front, price, break, drive, green, train and more.
The words were chosen by their opening letters and checked against a pronunciation dictionary, with frequency data used to find first grade vocabulary. The blends are the common thread; the vowels vary. You will find long a (train, trade, grade, break, great), long e (free, green, tree, dream, treat) and some odd ones such as friend and from. That makes this a flexible list: use it for blend practice, then come back later to sort by vowel pattern.
30 entries. Our solver needed 3.9 wrong guesses on average: 3 easy, 16 medium and 11 hard. The toughest is try (8 misses), the quickest tried (1).
- from Hard · 5
- great Medium · 2
- free Medium · 2
- group Hard · 6
- try Hard · 8
- true Medium · 4
- friend Medium · 3
- front Medium · 3
- price Medium · 4
- break Medium · 4
- tried Easy · 1
- ground Medium · 4
- drive Hard · 8
- green Medium · 3
- trade Medium · 2
- brown Hard · 7
- cross Medium · 2
- train Medium · 2
- brain Hard · 5
- dream Easy · 1
- grow Hard · 5
- broke Hard · 6
- tree Easy · 1
- draw Hard · 8
- prime Hard · 5
- grade Medium · 3
- proud Hard · 6
- bridge Medium · 2
- prove Medium · 4
- treat Medium · 2
Words worth a closer look
- fromThe o makes a short u sound, so the word cannot be sounded out reliably. One of the most frequent words in writing.
- friendIe says short e here, an unusual spelling. A well-known memory trick is that a friend is there to the end.
- greatEa says long a here, as in break, and not long e, as in dream. The two words make a useful pair.
- bridgeThe dge ending makes the j sound after a short vowel. Compare with the ending in judge.
- tryY acts as a vowel at the end. When you add ed, it changes to tried, which is also on the list.
- proveSpelled o_e, but the o does not say long o. It rhymes with groove. Teach it as a special word.
Teaching it
Because r is harder for young children to say, begin with oral practice. Say tree and three and ask what changes, then try drive and dive. Children often hear the blend as a single sound at first. Tap out the sounds with fingers, then write the letters.
Look for dropped r (fee for free, gain for grain) and swapped letters (fiend for friend). Some of these words are so common that they should be known by sight: from, friend and great all break the sounding-out rules. In a hangman round, give the blend first, and let the group fill in the rest. After the round, ask students to sort the words by how the vowel sound is spelled.
Print a 1st Grade R Blend Hangman worksheet
Eight puzzles on one US Letter page, with a clue, letter blanks, an empty frame to draw in, an alphabet strip to cross off and circles to count misses. Page two is the answer key.
Need another sheet?
Draw eight different words from this list, right here. Same layout, new answer key.
Keep going
- 1st Grade Short A WordsFirst grade short a words with blends and digraphs: that, back, last, hand, class, match. Play hangman with the list, or print a worksheet.
- 1st Grade Short E WordsFirst grade short e words with blends and digraphs: when, best, next, check, dress, fresh. Play the hangman game, read the list, or print a sheet.
- 1st Grade Short I WordsFirst grade short i words with blends and digraphs: with, this, think, list, ship, fish, stick. Play hangman, read the list, or print a worksheet.
- 1st Grade Short O WordsFirst grade short o words with blends and digraphs: stop, rock, drop, shop, block, clock, frog. Play hangman, read the list, or print a sheet.
- 1st Grade Short U WordsFirst grade short u words with blends and digraphs: just, much, club, luck, jump, lunch, brush. Play hangman, read the list, or print a sheet.
- 1st Grade SH WordsFirst grade sh words: she, shop, ship, fish, dish, wash, sheep, shell. Play hangman with the list, read it with difficulty scores, or print a sheet.