Sound finder?

[tigrou]

I am looking for something to help my (dyslexic) dd with her writing - something that lists the spelling patterns associated with each sound, so that she can have them in front of her to chose from, while she's writing.
Essentially, what I am interested in is the vowels sounds, and something highly visual, so that when, for example, she wants to write /ai/, she can see the various possibilities... I was just going to make something myself, but before I reinvent the wheel, does anyone know whether such as thing already exists?
Thanks

The phoneme is always given first, between //, e.g. /ai/.
The rest are the spellings for it.
-ain is a spelling pattern in the sense that ai is the more common spelling before n, as explained.

Are you a teacher Marsha?

Mrz: You constantly misrepresent the sounds in your lists.

For example?

And i don't know what makes u think that i find English difficult.
When i was learning it in my youth, i was invariably top of the class.
I am perhaps more aware than most of its spelling and phonic inconsistencies, and the difficulties they pose for many pupils.
But as a language, i have never found English difficult. It's one of the world's simplest.

LuckyLopez

I used to be a teacher, but hat to retire from full-time teaching for health reasons 20 years ago.

It gave me the chance to establish exactly how English differed from other writing systems and what made learning to read and write the language so exceptionally time-consuming.

Since you constantly complain about the problems with English and write bizarre lists I can only conclude masha

Masha has never taught primary aged pupils

We use the Read, Write Inc charts - available from Amazon. They give a really clear overview of the spelling choices for each sound. Alternatively you could look at the Thrass charts?

Mrz
What i try to do is help parents understand why many children have difficulties with learning to read and write some words.

Any lists which i produce (and which annoy u, Feenie and Maizie so much) are invariably in response to a parent asking for more words with a particular sound, or a particular letter or letter string with variable sounds.

It is bizarre that English has both kinds of inconsistencies.

any lists which i produce (and which annoy u, Feenie and Maizie so much) are invariably in response to a parent asking for more words with a particular sound, or a particular letter or letter string with variable sounds.

No they are not, marsha. Until you were stopped you produced them everytime the word 'spelling' was mentioned and they are not only not really quite correct but they are designed to put the worst spin on English orthography that you possibly can. They were never designed to be helpful, so please stop pretending that they were.

Maizie
There is now need to put the worst spin on English orthography.
It's well known that it's Europe's worst.

And u are simply wrong about my lists not being designed to be helpful.

Now need. - U must be pleased to see that u've managed to get me a bit rattled, Maizie.

I know you are trying masha, however if parents want a useful list of words for each sound/spelling that matches with current teaching methods I would suggest "a lexicon of English spelling" Ibeckclasswiki.wikispaces.com/file/view/SpellRead+Lexicon.pdf not your muddled lists

Well, that document is a fascinating read mrz. I do agree with their claim that English is highly complex, but find it harder to accept the argument that it is 'highly regular', given that almost every sound can be spelt in multiple ways and many letters or letter combinations can represent several different sounds. And there are no silent letters in English, but there are silent letters within some graphemes, like 'kn', 've', 'me', etc., which surely amounts to the same thing, doesn't it? As they say, "Traditional spelling 'rules' tend to be very unhelpful because exceptions to them often occur more frequently than the 'rules' themselves." They seem to be using some definition of 'highly regular' that I've never come across before!
Please don't take offense, because I'm a light-hearted here! I think phonics programmes are great, generally.
I was looking for something simple to help my dd with her spelling, but these kind of alphabet code charts don't meet our needs. There is too much information; when she is writing, concentrating on what she wants to say, forming the letters, forming the sounds, etc., she has no mental resources free to check through such a thorough chart and wonder which of the 9 spellings of 'ee' should be used in 'believe', or which of the 12 spellings of 'or' should be used in 'draw'. But I am confident we'll find a way forwards.

English has a complex alphabetic code most sounds have a number of ways in which they can be written (often depending on the root of the word) and some spellings can represent more than one sound which is why it is important that children are taught these. If we had a totally transparent code where one sound has one spelling it would be easier to "pick up" this knowledge. So English is Highly regular as in there are a limited number of ways to spell a sound in English ... The sound /ay/ is never spelt axe or erw or iuo so readers in English need to know the limited number of alternatives

Yes, I do see that. Although I personally think it would be more accurate to say that the alphabetic code makes sense of an extremely complex and irregular spelling system, and presents it in a way that makes it appear more logical and easier to learn. And I take my hat off to the accomplishment!
But, I don't see how it helps people learn which of the possible spellings is right in any given word. Surely, within each sound group, the spelling of individual words just has to be rote learned?

Surely, within each sound group, the spelling of individual words just has to be rote learned?

With patterns that have many exceptions, that is exactly what has to happen, Tigrou.

If u look at the list which i first posted in response to your query, u can see (from the figures in brackets) which patterns have few exceptions, such as short /a/ with just 3, and are easy to teach and to learn and which take much more learning.

Most consonants don't have many exceptions, but most vowels do. The spellings for the /ee/ sound are especially random and take lots of learning - unless u happen to be born with an exceptionally good visual memory and can imprint them on your brain with lots of reading.

No tigrou they don't have to be rote learnt. Children are taught the alternatives and at first they may not recall which spelling to use in a word but with repeated exposure they become familiar with the word and recognise when a word "looks right" (how many of us write down a word when we are unsure of the spelling for just that reason). It would be an impossible task to memorise over a million words by rote.

Mrz: at first they may not recall which spelling to use in a word but with repeated exposure they become familiar with the word and recognise when a word "looks right"

That is an almost perfect definition of learning to spell by rote.

Really masha it's not anything like my experience of learning to spell by rote! No look cover write check just lots of reading books and writing stories

Tigrou, most sound spelling charts arrange the spellings in order of probability (that is, how frequently they are used). A working knowledge of the different spellings for particular sounds, along with a feeling for how common/uncommon they are provides a "framework" to which children can then relate the spelling of individual words when they encounter them, rather than them being expected to memorise them at random when they come across them.

Kesstrel
On my chart on page 1 i have also given the spellings which are used in most words first, followed by the next frequent one, but they have to be differentiated by where they occur in a word too, like 'a-e' and '-ay' for the /ai/ sound (late, day) and some subpatterns like ai before n (rain).

Things are also made more complicated by some very high frequency words like 'there' which have an unusual spelling. It's obviously a good idea to start with the strong patterns. - The figures in brackets on my chart tell u whether the sound occurs in many words, and how few or how many exceptions a particular spelling has.