Literacy

Spelling Rules

English can be a really tricky language to learn. Spelling in particular! Spelling is defined as the ability to arrange letters in the correct order to make words that are communally understood.

From silent letters, to split digraphs, and an apparently endless list of exceptions to grammatical rules, spelling can be tricky for many students to master. The same word can have different meanings and different pronunciations in different contexts.

Why don’t 'cough', 'bough', and 'through' all rhyme? Why is ‘fought’, the past tense of ‘fight’, but ‘lought’ isn’t the past tense of ‘light’? And, crucially, is ‘scone’ pronounced like ‘cone’, or ‘gone’?

Despite all the complexities, there are some handy English spelling rules that we can learn and remember to help us navigate the language. It might be better to think of these as guidelines, or patterns though, as there can be exceptions!

Spelling Rules or Patterns?

English is full of relatively predictable patterns and Louisa Moats (2010) highlights the following statistics:

50% of English words are spelled accurately by sound-symbol correspondence rule alone
36% more are spelled with only one error
10% more are spelled accurately if word meaning, origin and morphology are considered
Fewer than 4% are true oddities

English system is not so much rule governed as statistical — some spellings are much more common than others. The split vowel digraph for instance in the word lake, merely represents a very common spelling pattern where a long vowel is followed by a consonant and then an e.

A few common rules-

The –ck, -tch, -dge rule

Use –ck to spell the /k/ sound immediately after one short vowel sound at the end of a one-syllable word, as in back, clock, duck, stick, and deck.
Use –tch to spell the /ch/ sound immediately after one short vowel sound at the end of a one-syllable word, as in batch, itch, stretch, Dutch, and notch.
Use –dge to spell the /j/ sound immediately after one short vowel sound at the end of a one-syllable word, as in badge, ledge, bridge, dodge, and fudge.

Gentle Cindy or the Soft c and g rule

The letter c has the /s/ sound before e, i, and y, as in cent, city, and cycle.
The letter g has the /j/ sound before e, i, and y, as in gentle, ginger; and gym. (Exceptions to the soft g rule do not present spelling problems because in such exceptions, g has its “hard” sound, as in get, give, buggy, and bigger.)

The letters c and g have a “soft” sound when they appear directly before e, i, and y.

The Floss Rule or Doubling rule (-ff, -ll, -ss, -zz)

Double final f, l, s, and sometimes z immediately following a single vowel in a one-syllable word, as in staff, bluff, tell, still, grass, bliss, buzz, and jazz. (Common exceptions are pal, gal, if, clef, gas, this, us, thus, yes, bus, plus, and quiz. [Although quiz contains two vowel letters, q is always followed by u in English words so only i is considered a vowel in quiz.])

Sarah Watkins

Acting Assistant Principal/Literacy Specialist