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/: Count kick stack quest Cab keg mock queen Cull keep fleck quit Comb kind buck quaint Cusp kiss wick quote

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…

Vowel Middle of Syllable

End of Word

Examples

Long e ee, ea y creep, eat, baby

Long a a_e, ai ay race, rain, ray

Long i i_e, igh y ice, sight, spy

Long o o_e, oa ow vote, boat, bow

Long u u_e ew, ue rude, dew, blue

Diphthong oi oy spoil, soy

Diphthong ou (ow before n, l)

ow cloud, clown, cow

aw/au aw before n, l aw fraud, 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 Type Examples Definition

Closed beveragejungle

A syllable with a short vowel, spelled with one letter, ending in 1 or more consonants

VCe competebravely

A syllable with a long vowel, spelled with one vowel, once consonant and silent e

Open tablecrazy

A syllable with a long vowel sound, spelled with a single vowel letter

Vowel Team mouthfulspeedily

Syllables with long, short, or diphthong vowel sounds that use a letter combination for spelling

Vowel-r hornetstar ter

A syllable with a single vowel letter followed by r.

Consonant-le biblesingle

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/per su/per

hum/mer hu/mor

wa/ger wag/ger

Suffixes See pages 107-109 for rules and exercises for adding

suffixes