OnTrack Reading

This Page of the Guide lists 2-syllable, 3-syllable, 4-syllable and a few 5-syllable words from a 7,000 word database constructed from a children’s dictionary. The multisyllable word lists on this Page are organized on the basis of the vowel sounds in each word.

The OnTrack Reading curriculum teaches 19 vowel sounds, starting with /a/e/i/o/u/, the First Vowel Sounds, often called the short vowels. There are also five Second Vowel Sounds, referred to as long vowels in other curricula. These are annotated as /ae/ee/ie/oe/ue/.

In addition there are the sounds /ow/oo/oul/aw/ as in cow, zoo, would and saw as well as the four r-related vowel sounds, /ar/or/er/err/ as in car, for, her and merry.

Here are each of the word lists, presented in the order they are taught in the OnTrack Reading curriculum. Read the method of organization of the lists to get the most use out of them. Note: The lists were generated quickly without a lot of proofreading. Errors will be corrected as they are noticed.

Download the A (cAt) Sound Word List

Download the E (rEd) Word List

Download the I (hIt) Word List

Download the O (hOt) Word List

Download the U (cUt) Word List

Download the AR Sound Word List

Download the OR Sound Word List

Download the OW Sound Word List

Download the OE Sound Word List

Download the ER Sound Word List

Download the IE Sound Word List

Note: The /ee/ sound list would run to over a thousand words. In the two lists that follow, the /ee/ spellings y and e are not listed. The first list has the ee, ea, e-e, ey, ei and ie spellings of the /ee/ sound and the second list has the words in which the /ee/ sound is spelled with the letter i.

Download the EE Sound Word List with 6 Spellings

Download the EE Sound Word List with the “i” Spelling

Download the AE Sound Word List

Note: The next two lists cover alternative spellings of the /e/ and /o/ sound respectively. The /e/ sound can be spelled with the two digraphs ea or ai and the /o/ sound can be spelled with the letter a.

Download the E Sound Word List with “ea” and “ai” Spellings

Download the O Word List with spelling “a”

Download the UE Sound Word List

Download the OO Sound Word List

Download the OUL Sound Word List

Download the U Sound Word List with the “ou” Spelling

Download the I Sound Word List with the “y” Spelling

Download the OY Sound Word List

Download the AW Sound Word List

Download the ERR Sound Word List

As mentioned above, the sequencing of the vowel sound lists above is the same as the sequencing of the vowel sound presentation in the OnTrack Reading curriculum. Here is a list of that sequence:

Sounds 1 - 5: /a/e/i/o/u/ as in hat, net, hit, hot and hut (The Five Basic Code Vowel Sounds)
Sound 6: /ar/ as in car
Sound 7: /or/ as in for or war
Sound 8: /ow/ as in cow, out or drought
Sound 9: /oe/ as in boat, post, toe, tone, blow, soul or dough
Sound 10: /er/ as in her, sir, fur, learn, work or wizard
Sound 11: /ie/ as in find, tie, time, by or high
Sound 12: /ee/ as in he, bee, here, key, happy, each, ski, field or weird
Sound 13: /ae/ as in day, sail, same, table, weigh, they, great or vein
Sound 2 Variation: /e/ as in head or said
Sound 4 Variation: /o/ as in want
Sound 14: /ue/ as in few, cue, cute or unit
Sound 15: /oo/ as in blew, due, dune, truth, soup, zoo, suit or do
Sound 16: /oul/ as in would, wood or push
Sound 5 Variation: /u/ as in touch
Sound 3 Variation: /i/ as in gym
Sound 17: /oy/ as in boy or coin
Sound 18: /aw/ as in law, launch, taught or bought
Sound 19: /err/ as in merry, marry, Mary, very or where (Note: The spellings in wear, chair, share and aerobic were covered under Sound 13, the /ae/ sound.)

Except in the case of the first five Basic Code vowel sounds, when a list is generated, it will include all multisyllable words in the 7000 word database containing the targeted sound. In the case of the first five lists covering Basic Code vowel sounds, no words are included which have Advanced Code vowel sounds, such as /ow/ or /ee/ for example, because the lists would approach 1,000 words each. Instead, words containing only Basic Code vowel sounds appear on lists 1 to 5, and the list a word appears on is determined by it’s highest-numbered vowel sound. For example, hundred would appear on list 5 because it contains the vowel sound /u/ (sound #5) and the vowel sound /e/ (sound #2.)

Method of Organization

At the top of each list is a description of the way the list is organized, but here is a more detailed explanation of the method of organization of each word list.

Two-Syllable Words

First, all two-syllable words bearing the targeted sound are listed. They are sorted into two groups, depending upon whether the first or second syllable contains the targeted sound.

Next, each of the above two groups is broken down further:

Grouping 1 contains only those words that have all of the consonant sounds in the word spelled in Basic Code. Note, however, that any of the words in this grouping might contain other vowel sounds if those vowel sounds precede the targeted sound in the OnTrack Reading curriculum. This grouping provides words that a child should be able to decode regardless how far instruction in consonant spellings has progressed as long as all of the Basic Code consonant spellings have been taught.

Grouping 2 contains all of the words that didn’t make grouping 1 because they contain at least one consonant sound spelled with an Advanced Code spelling. This order of this grouping comports with the order that the Advanced Code consonant spellings are introduced in the OnTrack Reading curriculum.

Grouping 3 contains all of the words where the other syllable contains a vowel spelling not yet covered in the curriculum. Care should be taken not to introduce these words until the other vowel sound spelling has been covered later in the curriculum sequence. One use could be to use words from this grouping to review earlier sounds as the curriculum progresses past the second vowel sound in the word.

Three-Syllable Words

Three-syllable words are sorted into three groups depending on which syllable the targeted vowel sound appears, first, second or third, but not into levels of code used in the word. By the time three-syllable words are introduced, most of the Advanced Code for both consonant sounds and vowel sounds should have been covered, so the groupings done for two-syllable words becomes unnecessary.

Words of Four or More Syllables

Words with four, five or six syllables are listed in the order the targeted sound appears, with all words having the targeted sound in the first syllable listed first.

Other Spellings

If there is an entry under this heading it will consist of words which employ either a particular spelling of a sound that is regular, in that it occurs in several different words, but where that spelling is not formally taught in the OnTrack Reading curriculum (marked with an asterisk) or where the spelling of a particular sound in the word is highly irregular and should not be generalized as a spelling of that sound (marked with a double asterisk.)

How Words are Divided

Words are not divided into formal syllables. The divisions into chunks are done according to the method described by the OnTrack Reading phonics curriculum’s Main Rule and Three Exceptions. For more information on the Rule and it’s Exceptions, see Multisyllable Decoding-1 on the Sidebar under The Phonics Piece.

Return to Comprehensive Word Lists, or go to the OnTrack Reading Home Page