Phonics International

What are the grammar rules for using an alternative spelling?

Example: The 'S' sound and all its alternatives. Why do we say/use the sound 'C' and not 'S' in the word City, when the sound is the same? Same question goes for all the other alternatives throughout the program.

S -ss -ce- -se -ce -ci -cy sc -st-

I am an English Tutor to Chinese Children, they find spelling alternatives very difficult to grasp. What are the grammar rules for using the alternative sounds in spelling? Any suggestions of how to explain this to students would be helpful.

Can anyone help, please?

Thank you
Teacherhelen.

Hi Teacherhelen,

That is an interesting question.

The reason for the complicated spelling system in the English language is entirely historic. Over centuries, the English spoken language has been influenced by many other languages and spelling has been influenced by other languages.

The origins of various words and spellings can be traced back in some detail - and recently I've been reading a very interesting book about the history of the English language called:

'The Adventure of English - The Biography of a Language' by Melvyn Bragg.

An investigation into the history of the language explains why English is so complex but as teachers we need to know what spelling tendencies (patterns) we may call upon to help with teaching and learning.

The example you introduce above has to be approached from a reading perspective and a spelling perspective.

When reading words with the letter combinations ce, ci, or cy, the letters e, i and y following the letter c 'alerts' the reader to pronounce the word with the sound /s/ and not /k/.

This is a consistent pattern.

If a person wished to spell a word which begins with, or includes, the sound /s/, however, this is much more difficult and the teacher needs to actively support the learner to say, "We can identify the sounds /s/ /i/ /t/ /ee/ [in the word city], and in this word the letter 'c' is code for the /s/ sound".

This means the teacher has to constantly support learners with pointing out which spelling alternative is required.

Some generalisations (or spelling tendencies) can be made but there are too many to list here. The details of spelling generalisations can be provided within phonics programmes themselves.

http://www.phonicsinternational.com/uni ... 20A4x7.pdf

This Alphabetic Code Chart with 'teaching notes' will provide some information about the alphabetic code for reading and for spelling.

Hello Debbie,

so sorry for my late reply.

The PDF, with teaching notes are a huge help when explaining the sound variations thank you for directing me to this.

Much appreciated.

I am in the process of updating my own website do you allow reference to your site?


Thank you,
TeacherHelen

I am in the process of updating my own website do you allow reference to your site?

Of course. It will be great if you refer to this site - many thanks.

I'm pleased to hear that the Alphabetic Code Chart with teaching notes is proving helpful.

Kind regards!