Generic list of homonyms
Replace with personal pitfalls list

Most people (including me) have a list of homonyms that they regularly mix up. They aren't hard spelling words. Most are common words of fewer than five letters.

Homonyms are words that

Share a common spelling but have different meanings. (They may be pronounced differently as well.) OR
Share a common pronunciation but have different spellings.

Believe it or not, homonym is a non-technical term. Linguists might even say it's a sloppy term.

Precise terms

To be precise, words that sound alike but have different spellings are homophones. Bear and bare are examples of homophones.

To purists, words that are spelled the same way but have different meanings are homographs. Bow and bow are examples of homographs.

Whatever you call them — homonyms, homophones, homographs or spelling demons — they spell trouble for unwary writers.

Errors I see often

Below are sets of words I see confused in student writing most often. There's nothing significant about the order of items on my list of homonyms. I scribble notes about student problems as I grade papers. These happen to be notes I didn't lose.

its, it's.
there, their, they're
your, you're
then, than (not homonyms, but regularly confused)
to, too, two
for, four, fore
bear, bare
for, four, fore
whose, who's
lose, loose
male, mail
main, mane
ring, wring
medal, metal, meddle
right, rite, write
wait, weight
break, brake
steal, steel
scene, seen
cite, sight, site
peak, peek, pique
sail, sale
sole, soul
war, wore
wear, ware
which, witch
weather, whether
waste, waiste
tea, tee, T
die, dye
wet, whet

Using a generic homonym list

If you don't have time to do a thorough assessment of the mechanical skills of entering students (which happens way too often), pick a few sets of terms from this generic list of homonyms to use on your "counts off" list. In every class, there are a few students who confuse its and it's or bear and bare.

If you want students to eliminate their errors, I recommend you limit your search-and-destroy effort to no more than five sets of confused words a semester.

If students are slow or really hate writing, make that five sets a year. It's much better for learning and for motivation if students see they mastered some writing component, however small, before year's end.

If all Josh masters in seventh grade is the top three sets of terms on my list of homonyms, he'll be doing better than most of my college students.

A better option

If you have the same students for more than six weeks, forget the generic list.

Instead, require them to compile a list of words they confuse in their own writing. Have them work at eliminating errors in those word choices by the end of the semester or year.

Using this option. . .