Teach Spelling Using Vowel-Consonant Patterns
Simple Tips for Learning Spelling by Understanding Alphabet Groups
Jul 7, 2009
Learning English spelling is a complex task, more so since it appears to have more exceptions than rules. This is because the English language is indeed complex, since it has absorbed words from a host of other languages, most notably Latin, Greek and French. A closer look at words reveals that the way words are formed depends largely on the language of origin, and there are fairly consistent patterns. Once you teach your child to look for and understand these patterns, half the battle is won.
Vowel Consonant Plus “e” in the “VCe Pattern”
The “vowel-consonant-followed-by-e” is one of the most recurrent patterns in English spelling and occurs with all vowels. Teaching a child to identify this pattern will give him or her a head-start in spelling. Simple examples of this are: GATE, MALE, PANE (for vowel “a”), PINE, TILE (for vowel “i”), LONE, HOLE (for vowel “o”), CUTE, TUNE (for vowel “u”). Take the child through the exercise and allow the child to discover for himself that the vowel “e” behaves differently; examples for “e” would be HERE, DELETE.
Vowel Consonant Patterns “aid”, “ail”, “ain”
Begin with simple vowel consonant clusters where the child can easily mouth the sound by looking at the spelling. Pick a word like PAID. Say the sound out loud slowly, get the child to identify the sound and repeat it after you. Then, ask the child to come up with other words that rhyme with PAID, which repeat the same sound cluster. Words you could supply to help the child would be MAID, RAID, LAID. Avoid the word SAID now, since the pronunciation is different. Play it like a game.
After a couple of words, ask the child to think of other words with a similar sound, but where the consonant alone changes. Lead her gently into the “ail” cluster, with words like SAIL, MAIL, NAIL, BAIL. Over a couple of sessions, take him down the entire lot of “ai-plus-consonant” clusters.
Vowel Consonant Patterns “ead”, “eal”, “ear”, “ean”
By now the child should be able to identify other simple vowel consonant clusters, like “ead” and “eal”. Deal with them one at a time, and teach her to understand and get familiar with the sounds. Once the child grasps the concept of the pattern, similar sounding words should be easy to spell.
Other Common Vowel Consonant Patterns
As an ongoing exercise, get the child to identify other common vowel consonant clusters. Move beyond dominant vowel-sound clusters to dominant consonant-sound clusters like “ack”, “atch”, “ump”. Get him to explore the sounds, saying them out loud slowly, understanding which letter contributes to which part of the sound. Let him stack up the words in each cluster, master it, and move on.
Once the basics are mastered, she will realise that it’s not so difficult after all. Then, you can begin on the exceptions!
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