128+ Schwa Sound Words: Free Printable Lists
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The ultimate lists of Schwa sound words! Get two printable lists with 128 Schwa Sound words and examples. The lists are organized with words based on the placement of the schwa sound or vowel that makes the schwa sound.
ℹ️ About the Schwa Sound
5 fast facts about Schwa:
- It is the most common vowel sound in English.
- It makes the short /ŭ/ (‘uh’) or short /ĭ/ (‘ih’) sound.
- Every vowel can make the schwa sound: a, e, i, o, & u.
- Schwas will only appear in unaccented syllables.
- The schwa is represented by an upside down letter e on sound walls or in dictionaries: /ə/.
🤔 Want to know more? Learn everything you need to know about the schwa sound, plus get teaching tips and great visuals to make understanding this vowel sound a breeze!
✍️ Schwa Sound Words
So many words in English include the schwa sound! Just read a sentence or two from a text, and you’re guaranteed to find multiple words with schwas. They’re everywhere!
Below we’ve listed 128 words with schwa sounds and organized them into two different lists.
Schwa Sound Words (organized by the vowel that makes the schwa sound):
This list is organized based on the vowel that makes the schwa sound (1 column for each vowel).
| a | e | i | o | u |
| banana | telephone | April | astronaut | cactus |
| account | angel | possible | London | upon |
| comma | locket | council | other | campus |
| ago | witness | bikini | reason | walrus |
| natural | broken | raisin | wisdom | minus |
| soda | ticket | devil | pilot | focus |
| attention | helmet | animal | kingdom | dandruff |
| zebra | children | president | second | virus |
| alphabet | item | cousin | common | abacus |
| human | rocket | responsible | dinosaur | unless |
| general | system | cavity | director | mucus |
| around | open | horrible | parrot | success |
| award | silent | decimal | button | volunteer |
| sofa | calendar | similar | season | bonus |
| legal | jacket | medical | political | Venus |
| capital | necessary | victim | tomorrow | bogus |
Schwa Sound Words (organized by the placement of where the schwa sound occurs):
This list is organized into three columns (by 1st, 2nd, or 2+ syllables) by placement of where the schwa sound occurs with the syllable.
| Schwa in 1st Syllable | Schwa in 2nd Syllable | Schwa in More Than 1 Syllable |
| balloon | lemon | calculator |
| curriculum | enemy | banana |
| remember | problem | halibut |
| alert | pasta | accident |
| ago | ribbon | apparent |
| effect | salad | aroma |
| support | bagel | cinema |
| community | rhombus | animal |
| bikini | kingdom | abundant |
| electric | fossil | gorilla |
| specific | memory | elephant |
| achieve | difficult | habitual |
| suffice | China | eleven |
| below | thousand | pelican |
| occur | model | principal |
| away | bottom | inconsistent |
📃 Practice with Schwa Word Lists
These printable pdf worksheets are great for so many things! We’ve also included two versions, one with the schwa underlined and one without it underlined. Since they’re organized differently, you can use them for targeted practice in various ways.
✨ Use as a quick reference for schwa examples when providing direct instruction on the schwa spelling generalization.
✨ Use these lists to dictate words with similar patterns for schwa spelling practice.
✨ Use the unmarked copies for kids to sort. Kids can cut, sort, and paste, then practice reading and rereading for fluency.
✨ Have students highlight the schwa sound in each word, using the unmarked lists. Staple into their phonics notebooks.
📚Educational Focus: These word lists are great to use with 2nd grade and up. They’re great for any students still struggling with reading, pronouncing, or spelling words with schwa sounds.
👉 Related Resources & Word Lists
Get free schwa sound practice worksheets for students to practice reading, identifying, and spelling words with schwa!
Check out our free printable Long Vowel Lists, with words organized by every spelling of long vowel sounds:
- 229+ Long A Words List
- 233+ Long E Words List
- 173+ Long I Words List
- 131+ Long O Words List
- 215+ Long U Words List
⬇️ Then, head to TPT and grab our Ultimate Phonics Word Lists with over 2000+ words, plus Google Slides! These are perfect for any phonics concept you’re working on and makes differentiation a breeze!
Be sure to check out more related posts:
🖨️ Download & Print
We hope you can use many of the words on this list as you teach the schwa sound. Please comment below or tag us on Instagram @Literacylearn to tell us your best tips for teaching schwa.
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In your list of 5 fast facts about the schwa sound, it states that it is never found in unaccented words. Could you please explain busy on the list?
Hi Linda,
At first glance, it does seem like the ‘u’ represents the schwa sound. But since the first syllable is stressed, the ‘u’ cannot be a schwa. I just did some digging into the word using the Oxford English Dictionary – looking specifically at word origin and usage. Old and Middle English spelled the word with an ‘i’ (bisig, bisy). By the mid-1500’s through the late 1600’s, the word was consistently spelled with ‘u,’ including multiple instances from William Shakespeare himself! (Although, he spelled it ‘busie’ with ‘ie’ at the end). And around the 1700’s, it consistently was spelled the same way we spell it today – ‘busy.’ Based on this information, we are going to remove the word from the list! Thanks for pointing this out and I hope you found this explanation helpful 🙂
Katie and Laura
I love your materials! Thank you so much for sharing them with us. I have used your lists to tutor students with dyslexia.
Jill,
Thank you so much for your kind words. We try our best to create resources that help your instruction and benefit kids! That’s what it’s all about 😉
Katie and Laura