Writing and phonics

[Notcontent]

Background is that I am a bit annoyed at dd's teacher who seemed to suggest that dd's spelling is not great because she needs to improve her knowledge of phonics.

Dd is 7 and her reading is great, as acknowledged by her teacher, but her writing is not as good as her reading. Before Christmas at meeting teacher said that her spelling is letting her down and gave me a sheet with the phonics sounds to practice with dd. But the fact is that there are so many exceptions to English spelling that a lot of it is just memory work. I think that needs to be acknowledged. We have been doing lots of writing at home and I think her spelling is pretty good actually.

I do agree that phonics helps with reading, and helps a bit with spelling, but that's not the whole story, is it?

Galina Oh sorry, are you talking to me?

Well done - you can copy the part of your list I queried out again. I still don't see the point... It is still a 'k' sound whether it is spelled k, que, c, etc It seems to me that you have arbitrarily decided on your selections. But don't feel you need to copy your list again.

And you still haven't explained why, next to the two 'th' patterns, you have simply put a 0 in brackets - therefore saying there are no words with that sound, as 'The figures in brackets show how many of the 7,000 words which i analysed use each pattern - and how many don't.'

I still hold that your lists are flawed. If you can't see that, that's up to you.

"Thankfully, when I am on my death bed I will feel some satisfaction in knowing that I have helped hundreds of children learn to spell, as well as pass their A level English" and confused thousands in the process

If you have a different opinion then mrz come out with it instead of making snide comments.

I thought as 2 SpLD teachers we were both singing from the same hymn sheet.

mrzI assume you do have qualifications in teaching literacy as opposed to being just a primary teacher?

appologies jaffacakesallround

I had a feeling mrz had misread who originally said that, but didn't like to say so in case I was wrong.

I did Galena

and I'm not a SpLD teacher

Kiss and make up then- that's fine mrz :)

Galena - Sorry about misspelling your name last time.

I see now that i should have explained my table a little more.
The numbers 1 - 43 list the 43 English sounds in alphabetical order.

For each sound, u can see the most used graphemes for it (letters or letter strings like a-e, ch or sh), and also subpatterns like -ain and wa- (for short o after w).
The main patterns are shown on the left, followed by a word which exemplifies it - then examples of words which use other spellings (and in brackets the figures for words out of the 7,000 most HF ones which use that spelling - and those which use the variant spellings).

(0) after a pattern means simply that it has no variant spellings in the 7,000 most HF words. I've highlighted them on here, and u can see that there are very few of those.

In Word, with formatting, this is much clearer,
e.g. 1. a: cat – plait, meringue (466 – 3)
but on here formatting is very fiddly and impossible for letters within words.

But for anyone genuinely interested in seeing the regularities and irregularities of English spelling for themselves, it is still of help, i think.

Re th, i found 203 words with th, of which 57 have the sharp sound of 'bathe, brother, breathe' and 146 the soft sound of 'moth, month, think'.

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)

20. n: nose– knot, gone, gnome, mnemonic (2,312 – 34)

21. -ng: ring ( 0 )

22. o: on– cough, sausage, gone(357 – 5)
    want – wont (19 – 1); quarrel– quod (10 -1)

23. 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)

24. oi: oil– oyster (29 –1)
    -oy: toy –buoy (12 – 1)

25. oo (long): food– rude, shrewd, move, group, fruit, truth, tomb,
    blue, do, shoe,through, manoeuvre (94 – 108)

26. oo (short): good– would, put, woman, courier (15 -21)

27. 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)

28. ou: out– town (74 – 24);
    -ow: now – plough (11 – 4)

29. p: pin ( 0 )

30. r: rug– rhubarb, write (1,670 – 27)

31. s: sun – centre,scene (138 – 49)
    -ce: face – case; fancy– fantasy (153 – 65)

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

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

34. th (sharp): this ( 0 )

35. th (soft): thing ( 0 )

36. u: up– front, some, couple, blood (308 – 68)

37. u-e: cute – you,newt, neutral, suit, beauty, Tuesday, nuclear (137 – 21)
    -ue: cue –few, view,menu (20– 22)

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

39. w: window– which (216 – 31)

40. y: yak– use (31 – 11)

41. z: zip– xylophone (16 – 1)
    -se: rose –froze (85– 33)
    wise– size (UK 31 – 3, US 11 – 22)

42. zh: -si-/-su-: vision, measure – azure (20 – 3)

43. 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 - 554 - 195)

I do worry about the mental health of some people who continue to plough their own furrow but never actually respond - or appear to read -other points made.

I assume all these lists are a 'cut and paste' job. If not then it's a reflection IMO of a rather sad and empty life.

Everyone is ploughing their own furrow. It's simply that some furrows are wider than others.

But some people who plough their own furrow do look up and actually take note of what other furrows people are ploughing, rather than proceed head down with blinkers on.

I'm sorry - I didn't realise that by asking a question I'd get the list reposted AGAIN.

Well, yes, that's true. But maybe allowances can still be made. In some cases it might seem as if there's so much field and so little time. I don't think there's a great need for upset.

Galena
If i had the money, i would turn that list into a poster and send it to every school in the English-speaking world, for putting up in the staff room, so that all teachers get a clearer idea of what learning to spell English involves.

jaffacakesallround

I assume all these lists are a 'cut and paste' job.
I looked at some 'English alphabet charts' or 'phonic charts' compiled by other people, as any researcher would, but found that none of them provided a sufficiently clear overview of the English spelling system and its variants, and so did my own version.

I have of course got the list as a word document, with much clearer formatting, and i copy and paste from that, but it's entirely my own work, checked and doubled-checked umpteen times by me and many others.

This is based on my analysis of the 7,000 most used English words (give or take a few either way).

For anyone who is in the business of making unsubstantiated claims about English spelling regularities and irregularities, my efforts to establish exact figures for them are an inconvenience. But i have had dozens of emails thanking me for the work i have done, especially dyslexics and their parents.

When i see the many petty, ill-informed and thinly veiled, deliberately offensive comments posted on these forums, i think simply trying to make more people aware of how irregular English spelling is, is not such a bad thing to do.

Well, OK, masha. But there aren't many people who like having pepper stuffed up their nose!

A lot of the people who are getting upset spend their lives trying to convince people that the irregularities in the English language aren't all that important in comparison with the similarities (even if some of those similarities require a bit of imagination.)

They object, quite naturally, to someone coming along and repeating all of the differences that they've spent so long trying to argue don't exist/matter/aren't understood properly.

Are they right to object so strongly? (Well, besides being outright rude and demeaning) they've a perfect right to object. Civilised arguments are always welcome.

The plain fact is that the attributes of our language are infinitely debatable.

For anyone who is in the business of making unsubstantiated claims about English spelling regularities and irregularities, my efforts to establish exact figures for them are an inconvenience. But i have had dozens of emails thanking me for the work i have done, especially dyslexics and their parents.

No, they are not an inconvenience. They are pointless Masha.

You appear to be unaware of the many similarities between spellings and ignorant of the patterns that exist in certain words and how they are both written and spelled. My example of the 'soft g when followed by 'e' was one such example.

Establishing figures helps dyslexics precisely in what way? Perhaps you can now substantiate - please I'd really like to know- how your lists help dyslexics? You are clearly unaware as I've said above, of how words do follow patterns because so many of your 'exceptions' and irregularities are not actually either!

People like me accept that language has evolved and English is a mongrel language. I would not want for one minute to get rid of the rich heritage behind our spellings, but instead prefer to focus on helping those who have weaker literacy skills learning strategies for dealing with English as it is- not some pointless fantasy of how it might be changed.

There's a difference between not sharing a point and not having one.

Noah Webster wrote for many years about how he'd like to vandalise the English language before he actually did it. Johnson spoke in London for decades before he similarly did a hatchet-job on our shared lexicon.

To say that people oughtn't to vocalise their ideas about what they'd like to do to our language shows an ignorance of those who've gone before and actually done so. To say that you disagree with those vocalisations, though, is fair enough.

Oh gosh yes, of course, Masha is the new Webster or Johnson. Why didn't I spot that.

Well, all schoolteachers and authors who wrote endlessly about altering the English language in order to make it more rational...well, the signs were always there. Perhaps some of us have been paying attention in class.

I'm pleased you haven't got the money masha I spend too much of my time filing unsilicited unrubbish in the bin as it is

unsolicited

Oh, I thought it was nu-spel mrz