How to move on from spelling phonetically?

[LynetteScavo]

Is reading lots the answer? And if so, what do you do with a child who is a reluctant reader?

[LynetteScavo]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14316028

I just found this article, which sort of links with mathanxiety's, and I found interesting.

[mathanxiety]

Anyone see this really interesting article? It seems to indicate that musical training can significantly enhance a student's potential to learn to read.

'...the researchers found that those who had better musical training also had enhanced neural responses to speech sounds. In poorer readers this response was diminished.
'Neural jitter'

"It turns out that kids who are poor readers have a lot of difficulty doing this motor task and following the beat. In both speech and music, rhythm provides a temporal map with signposts to the most likely locations of meaningful input," Prof Kraus told BBC News.

The brainwaves recorded matched the soundwaves, she said. "You can even take the recorded brainwave and play it back through your speaker and it will sound like the soundwave.

"It seems that the same ingredients that are important for reading are strengthened with musical experience. Musicians have highly consistent auditory-neural responses.

"It may be that musical training - with its emphasis on rhythmic skills - can exercise the auditory-system, leading to less neural jitter and stronger sound-to-meaning associations that are so essential for learning to read," added Prof Kraus'

[mrz]

pleased you agree your figures are faulty masha

[Mashabell]

Mrz
it would take a lifetime to learn to spell all English words
I did underestimate a bit. Pupils of average spelling ability still can't spell many of the 7,000 most used words by the age of 16. That's after 12 years of learning.

I doubt if anyone ever learns to spell all English words. Even highly educated people remain unsure about many of the ones they use quite regularly.

And that is entirely due to English having no reliable system for spelling them.

[mrz]

masha I think your figure of ten years is greatly underestimated as I said earlier it would take a lifetime to learn to spell all English words

[Mashabell]

Thank u for mentioning that I have written some books Feenie.
None of my print books were self-published.
Self-publishing an ebook is becoming quite common, because most publishers don't give authors much help nowadays, leaving the editing to them and their friends.

My numbers are based on a meticulous analysis of the spellings of the 7,000 most used English words. I did so to bring so realism to the many different claims made about English spelling without any research basis.

Please say, by all means, what is extraordinary or peculiar, for example, about the list of spelling patterns for the 44 English sounds which I posted the other day?

(The figures in brackets show how many of the 7,000 most used English words which I have analysed use that spelling - and how many spell it differently.)

1. a: cat – plait, meringue (466 – 3)
2. a-e: plate – wait, weight, straight, great, table dahlia, fete (338 – 69)

-ain: rain – lane, vein, reign, champagne (39 – 19)
-ay: play – they, weigh,ballet,cafe, matinee (35 – 20)

1. air: care – hair, bear, aerial, their, there, questionnaire (31-are – 27 other)
2. ar: car – are + (Southern Engl. bath) (138 – 1)
3. au: sauce – caught, bought,always, tall, crawl (44 au – 76 other)

-aw: saw – (0)- but in UK 11-aw + 40 awe, or, four, sore, war

1. b: bed (0)
2. ca/o/u: cat, cot, cut – character, kangaroo, queue (1022 – 33)

cr/cl: crab/ clot – chrome, chlorine (192 – 10)
-c: lilac –stomach, anorak (89 – 9)
-ck: neck –cheque, rec (62 – 6)
k: kite/ kept – chemistry (124 – 7)
-k: seek –unique (36 – 5)
-sk: risk –disc, mosque (86 – 10)
qu: quick – acquire, choir (78 – 4)
x: fix – accept, except, exhibit (98 – 15)

1. ch: chest – cello (155 – 1)

-tch: clutch – much (24 – 7)
9 d: dad – add, blonde (1,010 – 3)

10. e: end– head, any, said, Wednesday, friend, leisure,
leopard, bury (301 – 67)
11. er: her – turn, bird, learn, word, journey (70er – 124)
12. ee: eat– eel, even, ceiling, field, police,people,
me, key,ski, debris, quay (152ea – 304)
--y: jolly– trolley, movie, corgi (475 – 39)

13. f: fish– photo, stuff, rough (580 - 44)
14. g: garden– ghastly, guard (171– 28)
15. h: house– who (237 – 4)

16. i: ink– mystery, pretty, sieve, women, busy, build (421 – 53)
17. i-e: bite – might, style, mild, kind, eider, height, climb
island indict sign (278 – 76)
-y: my – high,pie, rye, buy, I, eye (17 – 14)

18. j: jam/ jog/ jug (0)
jelly, jig – gentle, ginger (18 – 20)
-ge: gorge (0)
-dg: fidget– digit (29 – 11)

19. l: last– llama (1,945 – 1)
20: m: mum– dumb, autumn (1,128 – 19)
21. n: nose– knot, gone, gnome, mnemonic (2,312 – 34)
22. -ng: ring (0) 22
23. o: on– cough, sausage, gone(357 – 5)
want – wont (19 – 1); quarrel– quod (10 -1)
24. o-e: mole – bowl, roll, soul; old – mould
boast, most, goes, mauve (171 – 100)
-o: no –toe, dough, sew, cocoa, pharaoh, oh, depot (106 – 59)
25. oi: oil– oyster (29 –1)
-oy: toy –buoy (12 – 1)
26. oo (long): food– rude, shrewd, move, group, fruit, truth, tomb,
blue, do, shoe,through, manoeuvre (94 – 108)

27. oo (short): good– would, put, woman, courier (15 -21)
28. or: order– board, court; wart, quart– worn, quorn (188 – 16)
-ore:more – soar, door, four, war, swore,abhor (23– 17)
+ (14 –aw/awe in UK)
29. ou: out– town (74 – 24);
-ow: now – plough (11 – 4)

30. p: pin (0)
31. r: rug– rhubarb, write (1,670 – 27)
32. s: sun – centre,scene (138 – 49)
-ce: face – case; fancy– fantasy (153 – 65)

33. sh: shop – chute, sure, moustache, liquorice (166 – 30)
-tion: ignition– mission, pension, suspicion,fashion (216 – 81)

34. t: tap, pet – pterodactyl, two, debt (1,398 – 4)
--te: delicate – democrat (52 – 3)

35. th (sharp): this (0)
36. th (soft): thing (0)

37. u: up– front, some, couple, blood (308 – 68)
38. u-e: cute – you,newt, neutral, suit, beauty, Tuesday, nuclear (137 – 21)
-ue: cue –few, view,menu (20– 22)

39. v: van (0)
-ve: have –spiv (116– 3) [80 with surplus –e]
-v-: river– chivvy (73 – 7) – v/vv after short vowel

40. w: window– which (216 – 31)
41. y: yak– use (31 – 11)
42. z: zip– xylophone (16 – 1)
-se: rose –froze (85– 33)
wise– size (UK 31 – 3, US 11 – 22)
43. zh: -si-/-su-: vision, measure – azure (20 – 3)


44. Unstressed, unclear vowel sound (or schwa),
occurring mainly in 8 endings and 2 prefixes:
-able: loveable– credible(33 – 17)
-ccle: bundle (2 consonants + -le for -l) (0)
-al: vertical– novel, anvil, petrol (200+ – 32)
-ary: ordinary– machinery, inventory, century,carpentry(37 – 55)
-en: fasten– abandon, truncheon, orphan, goblin, certain (73 – 132)
-ence: absence– balance (33 – 26)
-ent: absent – pleasant (176 – 58)
-er: father –author, armour, nectar, centre, injure,quota (UK 340, US 346 – 135/129)
butcher – picture (42 –ure)
de-: decide – divide (57 – 29)
in-: indulge – endure (73 – 30)

Consonant doubling rule for showing short, stressed vowels
merry (regular) – very(missing) – serrated(surplus)
(423 - 513 - 239)

[Feenie]

Only because you post them all over the internet at the drop of a hat - or self-publish them in your books, Masha. The numbers are your own invention, and your lists are arranged in extraordinary and peculiar ways. Let's have a bit of realism here.

[Mashabell]

Mrz
U are accusing me, like many times before, of
plucking unsupported numbers from the air.
This is probably because u don't like what they show about English spelling inconsistencies, i.e. that 4 words in every 7 (4,000 out of 7,000) contain one or more irregular or phonically unpredictable letters.

U have also accused me before of basing my claims on too small a sample, because the English lexicon now contains over 1 million words. But as most people use and know only a fraction of them, I collected for my research, by comparing several word list for young children and spelling lists for older children, the words that an average 16-yr-old can be expected to have come across or be expected to know. It came to just over 7,000.

Interestingly, on the recent radio 4 programme Fry's English Delight (for which I was also interviewed) they concluded that a reasonably educated adult knows around 8,000 words. So I was not far off the mark.

The words which I analysed, as well as the results of my analysis, are all available for public inspection, as u well know.

[mrz]

You are back to plucking unsupported numbers from the air masha.

[Mashabell]

Eight neighing horses pulled a sleigh of weighty neighbours.
Essentially it's a matter of 'if it works, it's fine'.

The irregular spellings have to become liked to particular words in the speller's mind.
With phonically regular spelling systems, they just learn to apply patterns.
For a sound like the English ai sound, for example, they would learn to spell it with
a-e (i.e. an open a, as in hale or halo) in the middle of words (ate, waty, nabours - as in late, maty, baby ...) and
-ay at the end of words (naying, slay - as in play, stay, day...).

Most European languages are not phonetically perfect like Finnish, so pupils need to learn a few exceptions in most of them too, but mostly just a few hundred.
In English, at least 4,000 common words contain irregular spellings of some kind.

But the very worst aspect of English spelling is the use of identical graphemes for different sounds:
on, off, got, not, hot... - only, once, other, woman, women, womb.. which makes learning to read English much slower than in other languages too, not just learning to spell.

This is part of the overall spelling irregularities, but their effect on overall literacy acquisition is particularly nasty, because reading helps to imprint irregular spellings on our minds.
Children who take a very long time learning to read end up doubly disadvantaged.

But coming back to your point. The irregular spellings have to be linked to their words, one by one, anyway that helps. The is no magic method that works equally for everyone. For the majority it's a long slog, around 10 years on average.

[mrz]

oald8.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/dictionary/ancient

[mrz]

and yes the spellings you mentioned are included in the 175 figure

[mrz]

but eigh isn't rare thegamesafoot ...there are actually very few commonly used words that have unique spellings for sounds.

[mathanxiety]

Spelling lists need not be random.

[thegamesafoot]

Coming back on topic I would just add that despite my worries about just how many rare correspondences there are, I've been thinking about ways to teach dd spellings using phonics (I don't like the idea of random spelling lists at all).

So far my idea is to create sentences with words using a particular rare correspondence (after all many words are, for want of a better expression, phonetically regular and if you've been taught phonics well you don't need to learn to spell them - unlike the rarer correspondences.

So here's an example:

Eight neighing horses pulled a sleigh of weighty neighbours.

Of course if there's a lot of rare correspondences then maybe it would become impractical. Does anything like this exist, and if not is it due to it being impractical, or (for some reason that I've not picked up on) just plain daft?

[thegamesafoot]

Yes, ar after w for the sound /or/ is indeed common - my mistake!

When I asked if these spellings were common I meant are they listed in the 175 common spellings / sound correspondences? I never suggested that my list contained unique spellings, I was wondering if they were rare spellings (not in the list of 175) for frequently used words. In fact what is rare? Is it, say, 30 words or less using a particular spelling / sound correspondence? I ask because I find it so hard to think of words with a particular spelling pattern unless it is very common.

I'm happy to check this for myself if you've got a handy link to the list of 175 common spellings for the 44 sounds?

With my accent:

bury, sounds like berry, not furry, so doesn't equate to /er/ in curl Perhaps 'au' spelling /ar/ (as it does in my accent) is as common as 'gh' spelling /f/ (i.e. not that commonl)?
Is 'ei' really a common spelling for /ai/ (is it in this 175)?
With my accent I say /c/ure/ee/u/s definitely not /c/ue/r/ee/u/s - or if it helps it doesn't rhyme with queue, which is the /ue/ sound I make for fusion, stupid and monument, it does rhyme with cure though.
Oh I'll add queue to my list where ueue spells /yoo/ (surely a rare spelling)?
Finally I don't say ancient in the same way as special - I agree ci for /sh/ is common BUT I say /ai/n/ch/u/n/t/ not /ai/n/sh/u/n/t/!

Perhaps I just don't speak proper !

Of course this makes me realise how daft it is to think that a straightforward phonics system (or a transparent code where one spelling = say a maximum of 3 sounds) is possible - due to all of the regional accents!

Still there is definitely room for a simpler spelling system (in my idealistic future world where updating all e-books could be achieved at the click of a button ).

[mathanxiety]

I agree with Choccyp1g you put it better than I did. 'Phonics' is a dud for teaching spelling. For reading very useful.

Of course it is to do with phonics ... words are made up of sounds and the way those sounds are represented in writing IS phonics
A very, very broad definition of phonics there..
I disagree that phonics is the path to correct spelling -- the way to represent those sounds correctly when writing involves rote learning of spellings and rules, and exercises involving those spellings and rules, and as Choccy says, lots of reading of texts involving those spellings and rules, in hopes of absorbing spellings by osmosis. Because of the way diverse language strands that have become woven together to form the English language, one size 'phonics' does not fit all.

[mrz]

All the evidence shows that learning lists of words for tests is an inefficient way to teach/learn spellings.

[mrz]

Just to say it seems people think that phonics is taught in a vacuum which couldn't be further from the truth phonics is taught in the context of words and texts so the idea that a child wouldn't know which way to represent the sound doesn't arise.
Homophones are obviously linked to meaning when taught

[mrz]

just noticed afterwards - is the spelling for /or/ the same as toward
view does have an unusual spelling

[mrz]

"This would be great if our most frequently used vocabulary used those 175 common spellings, however I suspect this is not the case. Am I right in thinking that the following words use rare spellings for the sounds we use to say them?"

busy - where u spells /i/ fairly common business, minute
bury - where u spells /e/ the letters is a common way to represent the sound /er/ curl, hurt, turn etc
Britain - where ai spells /u/ (or is that the shwa?) (I would class is as a schwa which is the most common vowel sound
aunt - where au spells /ar/ (isn't actually ar in my accent) depending on accent represents the sound /ar or /a/ in aunt and laugh and draught
island - where is spells /igh/
view - where iew spells /u or yoo/
veil - where ei spells /ai/ is a common spelling for the sound /ai/ rein, vein, feint, beige
heart - where ear spells /ar/ hearth hearty less common not unique
curious - where ur spells /ure/ no represents /ue/ fusion, stupid, monument (I presume "i" for /ee/ is common?) iis a common spelling for the sound /ee/ think ski, Ian, chilli, Anita, alias, casino, corgi
sew - where ew spells /oa/ unusual spelling or the sound /oa/
afterwards - where ar spells the short /oo/
towards - where ar spells /or/ war, warm, ward, swarm, wart, dwarf (following the sound /w/
ancient - where ci spells /ch/ common spelling for /sh/ special, precious, social, official, racial, commercial

sorry quick reply if I've missed any I'll get back to you

[Feenie]

Or you could just look at something universal about the alphabetic code and not a list which is only specific to Masha.

Alphabetic code

[Mashabell]

thegamesafoot
if us bods with a poor visual memory are in the minority, then we'll just have to continue to lump it
Analyses of GCSE script have revealed that nearly 1/2 of 16-year-olds are poor spellers.

As u seem interested in the different ways the 44 English sounds can be spelt, I'll paste in the summary from my research. (The figures in brackets show how many of the 7,000 most used English words which I have analysed use the main/most used spelling - and how many spell it differently. 0 stands for 'no exceptions'.)

1. a: cat – plait, meringue (466 – 3)
2. a-e: plate – wait, weight, straight, great, table dahlia, fete (338 – 69)

-ain: rain – lane, vein, reign, champagne (39 – 19)
-ay: play – they, weigh,ballet,cafe, matinee (35 – 20)

1. air: care – hair, bear, aerial, their, there, questionnaire (31-are – 27 other)
2. ar: car – are + (Southern Engl. bath) (138 – 1)
3. au: sauce – caught, bought,always, tall, crawl (44 au – 76 other)

-aw: saw – (0)- but in UK 11-aw + 40 awe, or, four, sore, war

1. b: bed (0)
2. ca/o/u: cat, cot, cut – character, kangaroo, queue (1022 – 33)

cr/cl: crab/ clot – chrome, chlorine (192 – 10)
-c: lilac –stomach, anorak (89 – 9)
-ck: neck –cheque, rec (62 – 6)
k: kite/ kept – chemistry (124 – 7)
-k: seek –unique (36 – 5)
-sk: risk –disc, mosque (86 – 10)
qu: quick – acquire, choir (78 – 4)
x: fix – accept, except, exhibit (98 – 15)

1. ch: chest – cello (155 – 1)

-tch: clutch – much (24 – 7)
9 d: dad – add, blonde (1,010 – 3)

10. e: end– head, any, said, Wednesday, friend, leisure,
leopard, bury (301 – 67)
11. er: her – turn, bird, learn, word, journey (70er – 124)
12. ee: eat– eel, even, ceiling, field, police,people,
me, key,ski, debris, quay (152ea – 304)
--y: jolly– trolley, movie, corgi (475 – 39)

13. f: fish– photo, stuff, rough (580 - 44)
14. g: garden– ghastly, guard (171– 28)
15. h: house– who (237 – 4)

16. i: ink– mystery, pretty, sieve, women, busy, build (421 – 53)
17. i-e: bite – might, style, mild, kind, eider, height, climb
island indict sign (278 – 76)
-y: my – high,pie, rye, buy, I, eye (17 – 14)

18. j: jam/ jog/ jug (0)
jelly, jig – gentle, ginger (18 – 20)
-ge: gorge (0)
-dg: fidget– digit (29 – 11)

19. l: last– llama (1,945 – 1)
20: m: mum– dumb, autumn (1,128 – 19)
21. n: nose– knot, gone, gnome, mnemonic (2,312 – 34)
22. -ng: ring (0) 22
23. o: on– cough, sausage, gone(357 – 5)
want – wont (19 – 1); quarrel– quod (10 -1)
24. o-e: mole – bowl, roll, soul; old – mould
boast, most, goes, mauve (171 – 100)
-o: no –toe, dough, sew, cocoa, pharaoh, oh, depot (106 – 59)
25. oi: oil– oyster (29 –1)
-oy: toy –buoy (12 – 1)
26. oo (long): food– rude, shrewd, move, group, fruit, truth, tomb,
blue, do, shoe,through, manoeuvre (94 – 108)

27. oo (short): good– would, put, woman, courier (15 -21)
28. or: order– board, court; wart, quart– worn, quorn (188 – 16)
-ore:more – soar, door, four, war, swore,abhor (23– 17)
+ (14 –aw/awe in UK)
29. ou: out– town (74 – 24);
-ow: now – plough (11 – 4)

30. p: pin (0)
31. r: rug– rhubarb, write (1,670 – 27)
32. s: sun – centre,scene (138 – 49)
-ce: face – case; fancy– fantasy (153 – 65)

33. sh: shop – chute, sure, moustache, liquorice (166 – 30)
-tion: ignition– mission, pension, suspicion,fashion (216 – 81)

34. t: tap, pet – pterodactyl, two, debt (1,398 – 4)
--te: delicate – democrat (52 – 3)

35. th (sharp): this (0)
36. th (soft): thing (0)

37. u: up– front, some, couple, blood (308 – 68)
38. u-e: cute – you,newt, neutral, suit, beauty, Tuesday, nuclear (137 – 21)
-ue: cue –few, view,menu (20– 22)

39. v: van (0)
-ve: have –spiv (116– 3) [80 with surplus –e]
-v-: river– chivvy (73 – 7) – v/vv after short vowel

40. w: window– which (216 – 31)
41. y: yak– use (31 – 11)
42. z: zip– xylophone (16 – 1)
-se: rose –froze (85– 33)
wise– size (UK 31 – 3, US 11 – 22)
43. zh: -si-/-su-: vision, measure – azure (20 – 3)


44. Unstressed, unclear vowel sound (or schwa),
occurring mainly in 8 endings and 2 prefixes:
-able: loveable– credible(33 – 17)
-ccle: bundle (2 consonants + -le for -l) (0)
-al: vertical– novel, anvil, petrol (200+ – 32)
-ary: ordinary– machinery, inventory, century,carpentry(37 – 55)
-en: fasten– abandon, truncheon, orphan, goblin, certain (73 – 132)
-ence: absence– balance (33 – 26)
-ent: absent – pleasant (176 – 58)
-er: father –author, armour, nectar, centre, injure,quota (UK 340, US 346 – 135/129)
butcher – picture (42 –ure)
de-: decide – divide (57 – 29)
in-: indulge – endure (73 – 30)

Consonant doubling rule for showing short, stressed vowels
merry (regular) – very(missing) – serrated(surplus)
(423 - 513 - 239)

I am sorry that this system makes it impossible to copy and paste with formatting for picking out the crucial letters, but I think it's still possible to see which spellings have few excetptions and which have many.

Masha Bell

[thegamesafoot]

As a person with a poor visual memory I always read these threads with interest...

Mrz, you refer to 175 common spellings [of the 44 sounds]. This would be great if our most frequently used vocabulary used those 175 common spellings, however I suspect this is not the case. Am I right in thinking that the following words use rare spellings for the sounds we use to say them?

busy - where u spells /i/
bury - where u spells /e/
Britain - where ai spells /u/ (or is that the shwa?)
aunt - where au spells /ar/
island - where is spells /igh/
view - where iew spells /u or yoo/
veil - where ei spells /ai/
heart - where ear spells /ar/
curious - where ur spells /ure/ (I presume "i" for /ee/ is common?)
sew - where ew spells /oa/
afterwards - where ar spells the short /oo/
towards - where ar spells /or/
ancient - where ci spells /ch/

Although this is a thread about spelling if you teach reading through synthetic phonics then spelling is just the other side of the reading coin. These are all words that dd aged 5 has needed to read and are seem like common words that I'd expect to find in KS1 writing.

The spellings, however, seem anything but common. I find the main problem is the vowels, which seem almost entirely interchangeable. As someone who struggles with a deficient visual memory I'd back a plain spellings campaign (do we really need that g in campaign anymore?), rather like the plain English campaign that champions clear written documentation. Of course if us bods with a poor visual memory are in the minority, then we'll just have to continue to lump it (whilst remaining ever grateful for spell checks)!

[Mashabell]

Beanandspud
..is there a 'rule' or a way to help a child to remember when you need a double letter in the middle of the word?
There is for lengthening short (one-syllable) words with short vowels which end with a single consonant (ban, beg, tin, hot, cut) with suffixes which start with a vowel, like –ed, -ing, -en, er:
Ban, banning, begged, begging, beggar, hotter....

The doubling is supposed to keep stressed, short vowels short and distinguish them from long ones:
Caned, caning, deleted, chided, noted, ....

When it comes to root words of more than syllable, doubling is completely unpredictable:
Very – merry, barrow – baron, salad – ballad, annual – animal

In the 7,000 most common English words which I analysed, I found:
423 with doubled consonants (abbey, adder, allergy...)
513 without (agony, amateur, animal...) and
239 with doubles which are unrelated to keeping stressed, short vowels short
(abbreviate, accommodation, afford....)

Consonant doubling in longer words is the very worst English spelling mess.

Yet if doubling was used consistently for keeping stressed short vowels short, it would be easy to apply, and it would help with learning to read less familiar words like 'latent, lateral, famous, famished, ravenous, raven....) just as it does with 'dinner, diner; stammer, stamen; holy, holly'.

It's the area of English spelling which is crying out for tidying up more loudly than any other.
Masha Bell