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?

[Wonderstuff]

Long a in against when I say against too.

[mathanxiety]

I say 'aggen' and 'aggenst'. But my mother says 'agayne' as Teacher seems to indicate, and 'agaynst' with a less strong ay sound.
So again does not rhyme with train for her.

You can call it phonics all you like but that is not strictly what it is. With English, you have to stretch the concept of phonics so wide that the word loses its meaning. When there are so many variations in pronunciation of the same combination you are not dealing with direct letter/sound correspondence.

[mathanxiety]

So again does not rhyme with train for her = for me whereas it does for her.

[Mashabell]

Should I be worried that his spelling age is about 6yrs but his reading age is about 11yrs?

My son (now 40+) was very much like that too. Perhaps yours is also very good at maths and science? Mine is a uni lecturer now.

He found learning to spell very difficult, and learning to read initially too, and used to get very angry about it, because it is so illogical. And my advice to him was always to try his best, but not to worry about it, to concentrate on what he wanted to say instead, and just write. He came to accept that English spelling is often incredibly stupid, but that he would have to learn it, but he was not happy about it.

As a teacher of English, I saw that the difficulties he had were minor compared to so many other pupils. That's why I am very much in favour of modernising English spelling. It could so easily be made much less baffling for learners.
Masha Bell

[mrz]

Sorry mathanxiety but it is phonics

Spoken words are represented by written words using the alphabet. The problem being that we only have 26 letters to represent 40+ sounds so a combination of letters are used to represent some sounds. For many centuries there was no standardised spellings and people simply spelt phonetically. The advent of standardised spelling saw the adoption of a single spelling pattern which is not affected by individual pronunciation which is why it doesn't matter if you say aggen and your mother says agayne

OED definition

noun
[treated as singular]

a method of teaching people to read by correlating sounds with symbols in an alphabetic writing system.

[Mashabell]

The problem being that we only have 26 letters to represent 40+ sounds so a combination of letters are used to represent some sounds.

That is not the problem at all.
Combining several letters to spell a sound, whether (ch, igh, e-e) would not cause any problems (chat, high, even), if they were used consistently. English reading and spelling difficulties are caused by the irregular and unpredictable use of them.

Learning to read English takes vastly longer than the European average of one year (with just three months for Finnish), because 69 letters and letter strings have more than one pronunciation (fat, man – many, father, able... shout, out, loud – should, shoulder, soup, double... even - ever... define - engine, machine).

Learning to spell English takes an average of 10 years because nearly all 44 sounds have more than one unpredictable spelling and at least 4,000 common words require memorisation of variant spellings (bed, led - said, head, friend, any...speak - seek, shriek... hair, care, their, there, bear....).

The problem is unpredictability.

[mrz]

They aren't unpredictable if you bothered to look masha but you prefer to believe there is no logic behind English spellings as it suits your pet project and perhaps explains why your son was so angry.

[mrz]

Masha learning to spell English takes a lifetime, throwing random unsupported numbers into the debate is pointless.

[Mashabell]

Mrz
learning to spell English takes a lifetime
It does indeed. Even bright, highly educated people can rarely spell all the words which they know and use with 100% percent certainty.

This is inconceivable for an educated Finn, German or Italian. And this difference is due entirely to the roughly 4,000 quite common English words which contain one or more unpredictable letters.

They are predictable in the sense that u can go and look them up in dictionary, but the are unpredictable in the sense that children cannot spell them by simply applying phonic patterns. They have to be trained spell words like 'was, what, friend, said, through' as listed dictionaries, rather than spelling them phonically, as most do to start with.

Learning how such spellings came about can help with memorising them, but they still have to be learned one by one. Knowing, for example, that early scribes did not like to have u next to m, n, or u (which back then was also used for v ), hence 'month, mother, love, glove' is quite nice but of limited help, because in quite a few words the short /u/ is spelt u, even when it is next to m or n (much, muck, run, fun, spun...).

[mrz]

No the predictability that there are a limited number of alternatives and these are often linked to etymology and root words ... dictionaries are of little use unless you have a reasonable idea how a word is spelt. Our language and our orthographical system are linked to our history masha which is perhaps what you fail to understand the quirkiness of our beautiful language tells a story of our past and would be lost if you had your way.

[Mashabell]

Everything has a history.
Those who are interested in the origins of words can look them up in a dictionary. Most people can already tell that 'mother, brother, sister, bread, house, milk, butter...' came from German, and 'battle, mutton, beef, table, button...' from French.

Modernisation of English spelling could give more children easy access to the multitude of literary treasures of this beautiful language and enable them to use it better. U would no longer get so many complaints from employers about the poor literacy standards of many of their recruits, including graduates.

[Ferguson]

Oh dear! - So often these sort of questions get diverted into interminable, complicated semantic debates, which I am sure isn't really what the OP wanted to hear!

I have been recommending the Oxford Phonics Spelling Dictionary to parents, as I am sure it will help SOME people understand and improve their spelling. Only £5.66 from Amazon, you can view sample pages HERE:

(PS: looked your Profile page: I never 'get' these 'sarky' comments, but you do look a handsome couple.)

Good luck, if you do give the book a try.

[mrz]

Your reply clearly demonstrates your lack of understanding masha ...
Ferguson I've noticed you recommending the Spelling dictionary how do you envision it improving a child's spelling or do you see it as a reference resource?

[mathanxiety]

The problem being that we only have 26 letters to represent 40+ sounds so a combination of letters are used to represent some sounds.

And that is why it is not phonics you are teaching when it comes to the exceptions, but the spelling of the exceptions.

It is only phonics in so far as the letters correspond to sounds, but when the sounds are not predictably and systematically corresponding to letters then what you are teaching is spelling.

Accent does not matter I was just passing the time when I mentioned different pronunciations of again and against and nor does the fact that spelling is standardised. When spelling is standardised in such a way that many letter combinations do not have standard pronunciations, then teaching the spellings of the exceptions is what you end up doing.

[Ferguson]

Hi mrz - the Phonics Dictionary can be a reference resource, but in addition I feel it can make people (and not just children) aware of rules and alternative spellings in a simple and understandable way, that they might not have considered or studied before. I'm not saying it solves all the problems for everyone, but it does present things in an attractive and easily understood way. Have you seen it yet yourself? I got a copy out of interest, was quite impressed, hence I suggest it as an aid to people with confusions or difficulties concerning phonics.

(Thanks for the 'Spell Checker' poem, by the way; I always meant to come back, but didn't get round to it _Sorry! Have a good term!)

[Mashabell]

When spelling is standardised in such a way that many letter combinations do not have standard pronunciations, then teaching the spellings of the exceptions is what you end up doing.

That is abosolutely right.
And because even in the core English vocabulary of 7,000 words there are at least 4,000 which contain one or more exceptional or unpredictable letters, learning to spell English takes an exceptionally long time.

[mrz]

So mathanxiety the word coast and the word bowl and the word toe and the word stone and the word gold don't contain the sound /oa/ because they have alternative spellings? how very strange

[blueberryupsidedown]

Back to the question, I have two boys, one is good at spelling as he has a very good visual memory, the other one isn't (but he enjoys reading just as much). For the one that finds it difficult, we practice, verbal spelling on way to school, written at home, pretty much every day. It's harder work and he will still write phonetically if he doesn't know or doesn't remember the rule. So he will write 'mistry', instead of 'mistery', 'suprisingly', 'tunel' (I am looking at his homework now, he is in y3), but he now gets the rule about ed at the end of a word (started, he used to write startid), and all words with 'ee' are correct. So they slowly integrate the phonics rules, and slowly learn some words by heart (he wrote 'mountain' correctly, because we practiced it some time ago).

So for him it's practice and practice, whereas my other son will write words such as 'people' and 'because' and 'Wednesday' correctly on his own because he has read them and remembers.

[beanandspud]

Sorry to crash onto this thread but 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? DS writes diner (dinner), sumer (summer), beter (better) etc. which make sense phonetically but he doesn't 'hear' the double sound iyswim.

[Wonderstuff]

It's about the vowel sound, for a short vowel sound you double, for a long vowel you don't. I always think of hopping and hoping.

[mathanxiety]

Since there is no system to what sounds the same and what sounds different what you are really teaching is spellings, not correspondence that occurs in a systematic way, as it does in Irish for example.

I see your gold and coast and bowl and raise you words like laughter and slaughter.

If you teach spelling by using etymology to group words together then you are teaching German, Latin, Old English or French phonics rather than English phonics (if you insist on stretching the definition of phonics).

[mathanxiety]

You don't hear the double consonant (another example of non-phonics). Double consonants are often (but not always) found in words that have a suffix.

Hop -- hopped/hopping
Drip -- dripped/dripping
Big -- bigger/biggest

What you 'hear' is the effect the suffix has on the consonant preceding it. In other words, what you do is learn the rule about suffixes and you don't rely on what you hear.

For one syllable words (CVC pattern):
Double the last letter and add suffix.

For two syllable cvc words:
Where does the stress come?
If stress is on first syllable do not double last consonant:
Enter -- entered/entering

If stress is on last syllable double the consonant:
admit -- admitted

In words like 'better', silent E rule comes into play. An E following a single consonant makes the sound of the preceding vowel long. If the first vowel sound is short, chances are the middle consonant is doubled.

Haha -- exception to straightforward cvc rule!!
Word with 'qui + consonant' pattern
Quit - is held to have cvc pattern and so
Quit -- Quitted/quitting
Equip -- Equipped/equipping

[goingmadinthecountry]

Sure it's all phonics, but it's still a bit of a bugger when you're 8 and have had "ou" sorted for years, then you find there's a b in doubt.

[mrz]

mathanxiety try looking the Belfast University study on Linguistic phonics in schools and say there is a problem with phonics for spelling and an Irish accent

[mrz]

It's a bugger if you get to 8 and no one has bothered to tell you about doubt earlier goingmadinthecountry