2nd Grade spelling
2nd Grade OA Words
Spelling words with oa for the long o sound, such as boat, coat, road and soap. Play hangman with the list or print a worksheet with an answer key.
Read the spelling list
The pattern: Words where the vowel team oa spells the long o sound.
The vowel team oa spells long o in the middle of a word. Boat, coat, road, soap and toast all follow the same rule: the o says its name and the a stays silent. Almost no English word ends in oa for the long o sound, so students usually meet this pattern inside a one-syllable word, followed by a consonant.
On this list you will find the everyday words such as goat, coal and float, and a few longer ones such as throat, cloak and groan. Loathe is included because the oa makes long o, though the th sound at the end is a spelling hazard. Each word was checked by pronunciation, so words with oa in a different sound, like broad, are not included. The pattern fits second grade because it builds on silent e and ai, giving students a third way to spell a long vowel.
29 entries. Our solver needed 4.0 wrong guesses on average: 5 easy, 13 medium and 11 hard. The toughest is oak (11 misses), the quickest road (1).
- road Easy · 1
- goal Medium · 3
- coast Medium · 2
- boat Hard · 8
- loan Medium · 2
- load Medium · 3
- coal Medium · 2
- coat Hard · 5
- throat Easy · 1
- oak Hard · 11
- soap Hard · 8
- goat Hard · 7
- oath Hard · 5
- toast Easy · 1
- float Easy · 1
- roast Easy · 1
- foam Hard · 7
- soak Hard · 9
- cloak Medium · 3
- hoax Medium · 4
- boast Medium · 3
- loaf Medium · 4
- roam Medium · 2
- roach Medium · 2
- moan Hard · 6
- toad Hard · 5
- groan Medium · 2
- moat Hard · 6
- loathe Medium · 2
Words worth a closer look
- hoaxThe oa is long o, and the x ends the word with a /ks/ sound. Rare letters make it a tricky hangman word.
- oathStarts with a vowel, which gives few early clues. The th at the end is a digraph.
- throatThree-letter blend at the start, thr, then the team oa, then t. Students often drop the a.
- loatheA verb meaning to hate strongly. The silent e matters, because loath without it is an adjective.
- oakOne of the shortest words on the list, with only one consonant sandwiched in. Not easy to guess.
Teaching it
Students often write the long o with silent e instead, spelling boat as bote or toast as toste. Put the two ways of spelling long o side by side: note, boat, home, road. Ask students to say which are oa words and which are silent e words, and then to explain why there is no rule for choosing between them.
A good hangman variation is a rhyme round. Pick a family such as oat or oal and have players guess words that rhyme with a clue, like coat, goat, boat, float and moat. The printable then becomes a word sort by ending, and students can add their own rhymes to the bottom of the sheet.
Print a 2nd Grade OA 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
- 2nd Grade AI WordsSpelling words with the ai vowel team for long a, like rain, mail and paint. Play hangman with the list or print a worksheet with an answer key.
- 2nd Grade AY WordsSpelling words ending in ay, such as day, play, away and birthday. Play hangman with the list or print a worksheet with an answer key.
- 2nd Grade EE WordsSpelling words with ee for the long e sound, including see, need, week and queen. Play hangman with the list or print a worksheet with an answer key.
- 2nd Grade EA WordsSpelling words where ea makes the long e sound, like team, meat, steam and beach. Play hangman with the list or print a worksheet with an answer key.
- 2nd Grade IGH WordsSpelling words with igh for the long i sound, like night, light, high and bright. Play hangman with the list or print a worksheet with an answer key.
- 2nd Grade AR WordsSpelling words with ar for the sound in car, like park, farm, dark and shark. Play hangman with the list or print a worksheet with an answer key.