The English spelling system and phonics

[Mashabell]

Comments made on here have given me the impression that many parents are not sure what phonics means or exactly what learning to read and write English involves. I hope I can help to clarify this by providing some basic explanations of the English spelling system. I have done so a little here and there before, but thought it best to put the main points together at the start of a thread.
(I apologise in advance that they won?t be as clear as they could be, because they will be in plain text. Picking out letters in bold is just too fiddly on here. )

English has 43/44 speech sounds, depending on accent (e.g. saw /sore end with the same sound for some). The most used spellings for those 43/44 sounds are the following:
/a/ - |cat|,
/a-e/ - |plate, plain, play|,
/ar/ - |car|,
/air/ - |care|,
/au/ - |sauce, saw|,
/b/ - |bed|,
/ch/ - |chat, catch|,
/d/ - |dog|,
/e/ - |end|,
/ee/ - |eat, funny|,
/er/ -|herb|,
/f/ - |fish|,
/g/ - |garden|,
/h/ - |house|,
/i/ - |ink|,
/i -e/ -|bite, by|,
/j/ - |jug, bridge, oblige|,
/k/ - |cat/ot/ut, c/l/ram, comic, pick, kite/kept, seek, risk, quick, fix|,
/l/ - |lips|,
/m/ - |man|,
/n/ - |nose|,
/ng/ - |ring|,
/o/ - |on, want, quarrel|,
/o-e/ -|bone, old, so|,
/oi/ - |coin, toy|,
/oo/ -|food|,
/oo/ -|good|,
/or/ - |order, wart, quarter, more|,
/ou/ -|out, now|,
/p/ - |pin|,
/r/ - |rug|,
/s/ - |sun, face, lunacy|,
/sh/ -|shop, station, cautious, facial, musician|,
/t/ - |tap, delicate|,
/th/ - |this|
/th/ - |thing|,
/u/ - |up|,
/u -e/ -|cube, cue|,
/v/ - |van, river, have|,
/w/ -|wind|,
/y -/ - |yes|,
/z/ - |zip, wise|,
/zh/ - |vision, treasure|

There is also
the consonant doubling pattern (bitter - biter),
8 main endings (doable, fatal, single, ordinary, flatten, presence, present, other) and
2 main prefixes (decide, invite).

Before children start learning to read, good nurseries will already have started to make them aware of English speech sounds with rhymes, songs, games, etc.

When they first start learning to read, which nowadays is invariably by the phonic method, they usually learn to sound out just one spelling for those 43/44 sounds. They begin with single letters, such as s, a, t, p, i, n, until they have been introduced to the 25 main letters of the English alphabet. Then they start learning digraphs like th, qu, sh, ch, and later on even longer ones like igh and ough. (The order varies slightly in different phonic schemes).

?Phonics? in the normal sense of the word means simply learning the sounds for graphemes/spellings and how to use them in writing ? or learning how to decode the graphemes of a word and blend them into a word for reading; and reversing the process for writing.

The reason for English phonics being far more complex than that is because nearly all English sounds have more than one spelling (blue, shoe, flew, through, too) and many spellings can have more than one sound (on, only, once, onion). This makes many words a bit trickier to read than merely decoding and blending; and learning to spell involves a great deal of word-by-word memorisation, or learning ?what looks right?, rather than merely what is phonically right.

Instead of the mere 85 main graphemes which I listed first, there are over 100 others, as the next list shows. The variant spellings are responsible for making learning to write English very time-consuming:
cat - plait meringue

plate - wait weight straight great vein reign table apron dahlia champagne fete
play - they weigh ballet cafe matinee

air - care bear aerial their there questionnaire
car - are + (S. Engl. bath)

sauce - crawl always tall caught bought
saw - (UK also: or, four, more)

bed

c/at/ot/ut - character, kangaroo, queue
crab/ clap - chrome
lilac - stomach, anorak
neck - cheque
rocket - crocodile, soccer, occupy, liquor
kite/ kept - chemistry
seek - unique
risk - disc mosque

chat - picture
clutch - much
dad - blonde
end - friend leisure head any said leopard bury Wednesday
eel - eat even ceiling field police people me key ski debris quay
jolly - trolley budgie corgi
her - turn bird learn journey
fish - photo stuff rough
garden - ghastly guard
house ? who
ink - pretty sieve women busy build mystery
bite - might height indict style climb eider kind sign island
my - high pie rye buy I eye
jug / jog
fidget - digit
gorge
jelly, jig ? gentle, ginger
k (see c)
lips - llama
mum - dumb autumn
nose - gnome knot mnemonic gone
ring
pot - cough sausage
want - wont
quarrel - quod
mole - bowl roll soul boast most goes mauve
old - mould
toe - go oh dough sew cocoa pharaoh depot
oil - oyster
toy - buoy
food - rude shrewd fruit truth move group tomb manoeuvre
blue do shoe through
good would put woman courier
order - board
wart, quart ? worn quorn
more - soar door four war swore abhor
out - town
now - plough
pin
quick - acquire choir
rug - rhubarb write
sun - centre scene
face - case
fancy - fantasy
shop - sure chute moustache liquorice
ignition - mission pension suspicion fashion
ambitious - delicious luscious
facial - spatial
musician
tap, pet - pterodactyl two debt
delicate - democrat
this thing
up - front some couple blood
cute - neutral newt suit beauty Tuesday nuclear you
cue - few view menu
van
have spiv
river - chivvy
window - which
fix - accept except exhibit
yak - use
zip - xylophone
rose - froze
television
measure - azure

Schwa (unstressed vowels - mainly in endings and prefixes)
loveable - credible
vertical - novel anvil petrol single
ordinary - machinery inventory century carpentry
fasten - abandon truncheon orphan goblin certain
absence - balance
absent - defiant
father - author armour nectar centre injure quota
decide - divide
indulge - endure

Consonant doubling
merry (regular ? 372)
very (missing -384)
serrated (surplus ? 158)

Consonant doubling alone makes the spellings of nearly 1000 words unpredictable.
In all, at least 3701 common English words contain some spelling uncertainty. That's why phonics is of very limited use for learning to write English ?correctly'.
Masha Bell

But even learning to read English is phonics alone is not enough, because many graphemes/spellings have more than one pronunciation:

a: and ? apron, any, father
a-e: came ? camel
ai: wait ? said, plait
al: always ? algebra
all: tall - shall
are: care - are
au: autumn - laugh, mauve
-ate: to deliberate - a deliberate act
ay: stays - says

cc: success - soccer
ce: centre - celtic
ch: chop ?chorus, choir, chute
cqu: acquire - lacquer

e: end ? English
-e: he - the
ea: mean - meant, break
ear: ear ? early, heart, bear
-ee: tree - matinee
e-e: even ? seven, fete
ei: veil - ceiling, eider, their, leisure
eigh: weight - height
eo: people - leopard, leotard
ere: here ? there, were
-et: tablet - chalet
eau: beauty ? beau

• ew: few - sew
• ey: they - monkey

ge: gem - get
gi: ginger - girl
gy: gym ? gynaecologist
ho: house - hour
i: wind ? wind down

• ine: define ?engine, machine

ie: field - friend, sieve imb: limb ? climb ign: signature - sign mn: amnesia - mnemonic

ost: lost - post
-o: go - do
oa: road - broad
o-e: bone ? done, gone
-oes: toes ? does, shoes
-oll: roll - doll
omb: tomboy - bomb, comb, tomb
oo: boot - foot, brooch
-ot: despot - depot
ou: sound - soup, couple
ough: bough - rough, through, trough
ought: bought - drought
oul: should - shoulder, mould
our: sour - four, journey
ow: how - low

qu: queen ? bouquet
s: sun ? sure
sc: scent - luscious, molusc
-se: rose - dose
ss: possible - possession
th: this - thing
-ture: picture - mature
u: cup ? push
ui: build ? fruit, ruin
wa: was ? wag
wh: what - who
wo: won - woman, women, womb
wor: word ? worn
x: box - xylophone, anxious

• y-: type - typical
• -y: daddy - apply

z: zip ? azure

The use of one grapheme for more than one sound is why phonics alone is not all that learning to read English involves. It can provide a good start, but no more than that.

Phonics fanatics confuse most parents, and many teachers too, by calling virtually all teaching of reading and writing ?phonics?, yet constantly referring to the ?simple model of teaching reading? (i.e. the sounding out and blending of graphemes).

Because of the complexities of English, learning to read and write English is much more complex than mastering phonics. Yet amazingly, with patience and perseverance, rather than just phonics, most children get there in the end. But sadly, roughly 1 in 5 children get defeated by them. For them, the learning burden is simply too overwhelming.

Masha Bell