Confusing Words: Your vs You're!

I work in the education field and am always amused to see teachers, principals, literacy experts, and even superintendents make basic writing mistakes. Is it you’re or your? To or too?

These sound-alike words trip all of us sometimes and it’s always a good idea to think about them. Or play with them. Did you know if you typed in your browser - SpellingCity.com/totoo - you would get a great game (on your computer or phone) to play with these words? It's called MatchIt and it gives you ten common homophones to match with ten sentences.

Scroll down past the game, you’ll find seventeen lists of homophones or sound-alike words organized by grade. 

For example, here’s one of three first and second grade lists:

1. sale 2. sail 3. bear 4. bare 5. hour 6. our 7. pair 8. pear 9. male 10. Mail

And here’s one of the high school lists.

1. accent 2. access 3. aide 4. elude 5. leak 6. maul 7. ascent 8. leek 9. real 10. reel 11. allude 12. karat 13. carrot 14. excess 15. mussel 16. mall 17. discrete 18. discreet 19. muscle 20. assent

And it's always fun to try and work those words correctly into a sentence. Examples: Is it too hard to play two of these games and keep your mind sharp? You’re not to discreetly hide your mistakes. They’re like notice if their menu says mussel or muscle.

Try playing the MatchIt game with a first grade list or a high school list of homophones or sound-alikes.