The Structure of English Orthography

Important Terms  Orthography: writing system. Orthographic knowledge refers to the knowledge of how words are spelled.  Graphemes: letters or groups of letters that represent individual sounds.  Phonemes: Individual sounds in oral language.

Sound and Pattern Layers

Phoneme-Grapheme Correspondences  Consonant Graphemes  Digraphs: 2 letters that represent 1 sound (ch, ph, sh, -gh, th, - ng, wh, -ck, -ge)  Trigraphs: 3 letters that represent 1 sound (-tch, -dge)  Doublets: doubled consonants in one-syllable words (ff, ll, ss, zz)  Blends: 2 or 3 graphemes clustered before or after a vowel within a syllable (bl, st, pr, str)  Silent Letter Combinations: -bt, gn-, kn-, -mb, -mn, ps-, rh-, wr-

Practice  Identify the consonant blends and consonant digraphs…  Shirt  Steak  Whole  Strength  Zilch  Track  Psycho

Oddballs!  The letter Uu has 3 roles: 1) consonant when it corresponds to the /w/ sound (quack; language). 2) single vowel (cut) or vowel team (suit; taught; blue). 3) marker to keep the g from softening (guest; plague).  The letter Ww can serve as 1) consonant (wait; aware). 2) vowel team (saw; cow).  The letter Yy has 3 roles: 1) consonant (yellow). 2) single vowel (by; baby; gypsy). 3) vowel team (toy; buy; may).  The letters Cc and Gg: hard (when followed by a, o, u) soft (when followed by e, i, y). There are some rule breakers (give; get).

Phoneme-Grapheme Correspondences  Vowel Graphemes  Single Vowels: short (bat, leg, hid, top, mud, gym); long (secret, baby, table, digraph, cry, robot) Note: the long single vowel are open syllables  Vowel-Consonant-e (Vce): tape, cute, here, fine, rope  Vowel Teams: long (ee, ea, ei, ie, ey; ai, ay, ei, eigh, ey; ie, igh; oa, ow, oe, ough; ue, ui, ew, ough); short (ea); oo (book); diphthongs (ou, ow; oi, oy); au, aw, augh (raw)  R-Controlled: -er, -ar, -or, -ur, -ir

Phoneme-Grapheme Mapping  Once we understand letter-sound correspondences, we can match letters and letter groups to the sounds they represent.  Methods for teaching phoneme-grapheme correspondences include:  Word sorts  Word building  Grapheme manipulation  This is where developmental stages and differentiated instruction come into play!

Let’s Explore A Few Rules…  The spellings of phonemes are affected by its position in a word, letter sequences in the word, and stress patterns in syllables.  Examples /k/:  Countkickstackquest  Cabkegmockqueen  Cullkeepfleckquit  Combkindbuckquaint  Cuspkisswickquote What do you notice about the spellings?

Short Vowels and Consonants  “Syllables with short vowels crave the protection of consonants.” Look at the examples below and see if you can figure out what this means…  stiff, cliff, staff, buff, scoff  spell, fill, shall, dull  mess, kiss, toss, fuss  jazz, fizz, fuzz  blotch, fetch, scratch, crutch  squelch, mulch, zilch  pooch, screech, ouch  dodge, wedge, lodge, budge  wage, huge, scrooge, gouge  college, bandage, village, steerage

Common Vowel Spellings  See the chart below for common vowel spellings based on position in a syllable or word… VowelMiddle of Syllable End of Word Examples Long eee, eaycreep, eat, baby Long aa_e, aiayrace, rain, ray Long ii_e, ighyice, sight, spy Long oo_e, oaowvote, boat, bow Long uu_eew, uerude, dew, blue Diphthongoioyspoil, soy Diphthongou (ow before n, l) owcloud, clown, cow aw/auaw before n, lawfraud, dawn, saw

Spelling and Pattern Recognition  “Orthographic patterns are internalized through exposure to multiple examples, opportunities to sort and compare words, and explicit instruction in the most dependable patterns.”

Syllables  There are 6 types of written syllables… Syllable TypeExamplesDefinition Closedbeverage jungle A syllable with a short vowel, spelled with one letter, ending in 1 or more consonants VCecompete bravely A syllable with a long vowel, spelled with one vowel, once consonant and silent e Opentable crazy A syllable with a long vowel sound, spelled with a single vowel letter Vowel Teammouthful speedily Syllables with long, short, or diphthong vowel sounds that use a letter combination for spelling Vowel-rhornet star ter A syllable with a single vowel letter followed by r. Consonant-lebible single An unaccented final syllable containing a single consonant, l, and silent e.

Syllables: When to Double Consonants  Closed syllables must end in at least one consonant. The vowel that comes before the doubled consonants must by short.  Examples: sup/persu/per hum/mer hu/mor wa/ger wag/ger

Suffixes  See pages for rules and exercises for adding suffixes