How do you teach beginners the non-phonic spellings?

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debbie
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How do you teach beginners the non-phonic spellings?

Post by debbie »

This is a very good question, and one which many people are puzzled by - but there are no 'non-phonic' spellings:
Hi _____,

Good to hear from you again.

You asked me:

“How do you teach beginners the non-phonic spellings they encounter all the time?

e.g:
ALL ALMOST ALWAYS AMONG AS COME SOME COULD SHOULD WOULD HALF KNOW OF OFF ONE ONLY ONCE OTHER PULL PUSH PUT THEY THEIR TWO AS WAS WHAT WANT WHO WHY

THESE IT SEEMS TO ME SABOTAGE A PHONICS APPROACH TO LEARNING LITERACY.”



The spellings you refer to are all ‘phonic’ (all words are) but they just have unusual code which needs to be introduced steadily – and the words can be flagged up with similarly spelt words to create specific spelling word banks.

So, when we are introducing letter ‘a’ as code for the sound /a/ in apple, we wouldn’t be looking at words such as ‘all’ and ‘almost’ at that point in the programme.

When we are introducing the short /oo/ sound as in ‘book’, that is a good time to introduce the words ‘could’, ‘should’ and ‘would’ as they include the same sound.

I would say, “In these words [would, could, should] these letters are code for the /oo/ sound as in ‘book’” – whilst I pointed to the ‘oul’ letter group within the words.

You will find that the words that you have listed below can sensibly be introduced into the systematic programme and/or be introduced ‘incidentally’.

See this poster for a very simple way of introducing any bit of alphabetic code – even if it is rare – with a simple sentence:

http://www.phonicsinternational.com/FR_PI_straight.pdf

These posters below, give further examples of introducing more unusual letter/s-sound correspondences:

http://www.phonicsinternational.com/unu ... osters.pdf

All of this information is provided for the learner with a supportive Alphabetic Code Chart. Additional code which is ‘discovered’ can be added to the chart and/or posters made.

See the free Alphabetic Code Charts that I provide to download here:

http://alphabeticcodecharts.com/free_charts.html

There are already some examples of code on the chart which is very rare although it may be in common words.

All of the words you list are built into the Phonics International programme one way or another with various resources including core pupil-practice resources and posters.

I hope this helps.

Warm regards,

Debbie
Debbie Hepplewhite
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