Planet 7 is different from all of the others: instead of having students work on words that follow certain spelling patterns, the words in this planet are arranged by topic. These are critical words for students to be able to spell: the basic numbers, colors, days, names of family relationships, parts of the body, school-specific terminology, and more. Although this planet might require fewer specific teacher-directed minilessons, we think it is a critical set of levels for students (of virtually all ages) to practice.

Level 6-9 goes back to a final tricky vowel pair combo: the infamous -ie vs. -ei pair. Everyone knows the old "i before e except after c" line, "except in words that say 'a' as in neighbor and weigh." Many memes have been made about the limitations of this rule, however (see below).

Levels 6-6 and 6-7 focus on some word endings that students sometimes confuse with each other. Level 6-6 focuses on the -sion and -tion endings. The ten words used in this level are fraction, action, reaction, nation, conclusion, equation, direction, section, mission, and tension.

Level 6-7 focuses on the commonly-confused -cher, -ture, and -sure endings. The ten words used in this level are picture, future, nature, pitcher, pressure, capture, mixture, pleasure, treasure, and adventure.

Level 6-5 focuses on high-frequency words that start with either a silent w as part of a 'wr' beginning or a silent k as part of a 'kn' beginning. The ten words used in this level are write, know, known, written, wrong, knife, knit, wrestle, knot, and knock.

Building from the -igh pattern as a long i ending in level 6-2, level 6-3 now explores the very common -ight pattern. The ten words used in this level are right, light, might, night, sight, tight, bright, fight, fright, and flight. Level 6-4 focuses on the varied sounds the -ough pattern can make. The ten words used in this level are enough, tough, rough, cough, although, dough, through, though, doughnut, and toughen.

Level 6-2 continues our work with trickier patterns, this time focusing on three different word endings that can all make a long 'i' sound: y, ie, or igh. The words used in this level are sky, lie, high, sigh, try, pie, fly, dry, tie, and die.

One important minilesson to teach here involves showing the various sounds the letter 'y' can make at the end of a word. When there is a consonant before it, a 'y' ending usually makes a long 'i' sound in a one-syllable word (e.g. shy, sky, fly, why, my) and a long 'e' sound in a multi-syllable word (e.g. happy, snowy, lucky, story -- this is the focus of level 4-9). This is a distinction that students are often not taught, so we recommend making sure that you mention this in conjunction with level 6-2!

With more straightforward vowel pairs and consonant blends now complete, planet 6 focuses on a number of trickier letter combinations that are used numerous times in high-frequency words. Level 6-1 focuses on words ending with either -ch or -tch. The words used in this level are watch, each, scratch, itch, catch, patch, beach, teach, reach, and stretch.

Here is the general principle for when to use -ch or -tch: When following a consonant or a pair of vowels, use -ch. When following a single vowel, use -tch.

Levels 5-7 through 5-12 work on a variety of more challenging vowel pairs. Level 5-7 shows students that the 'ow' combo can make a long 'o' sound (as in words like slow, know, and grow) in addition to the 'ou' sound it made in level 5-6.

Level 5-8 compares 'au' and 'aw', and the same logic that applied to levels 5-4, 5-5, and 5-6 applies here: The general rule of thumb for deciding whether to use au or aw in a word is that in the middle of a syllable, you should generally use au; to close a syllable or end a word, use aw.

When we created RocketSpelling.com, our goal was to help students to become better spellers while having fun along the way. But why do students seem to struggle so much with spelling? Is it just because the English language is full of exceptions where words can't be "sounded out" phonetically? Certainly that's part of the problem. But in 20 years of teaching, I think there's a bigger, systemic issue out there:

Just like with the previous levels on ai vs. ay vowel pairs and oi vs. oy vowel pairs, the general rule of thumb for deciding whether to use ou or ow in a word depends on whether the sound occurs in the middle or end of a syllable or word.