[Before starting this section complete Script for Word Attack and about half of Spelling Script for Instant Words.

For further word study go to Dolch 1,000 Words, which are the most common words and includes the Instant Words. ]

STRATEGY FOR SPELLING SHORT WORDS

Suppose you want to spell the word "spell." First, you say the word and listen for the sounds in the word. The sounds are /s--//p-p//eh//l/. Second, you decide how each sound is spelled. The /s--//p-p/ and /eh/ are spelled just as you expect. What you may not expect, is that the /l--/ sound is spelled "l-l," which is common at the end of a longer word.

CHALLENGE: Practice spelling short words. I will say a word and use it in sentence, and then you listen to the onset and rime in the word and decide how to write them.

kite: Tim flew his kite.

night: It was a dark night.

joy: It was a joy to hear the song.

join: I will soon join you.

see: Did you see him jump?

sea: The blue sea was calm.

sky: There wasn't a cloud in the sky.

So the strategy for spelling short words is simple: If you are not sure about how to spell it, listen to the onset and the rime and decide which way to spell them.

STRATEGY FOR SPELLING LONGER WORDS

Suppose you want to spell the word "monkey." Say the word, and you will hear two syllables. Do you remember the difference between a syllable and a rime? A syllable is a chunk of speech with one vowel sound and may or may not begin with a consonant. "Man" is one whole syllable. A rime is the vowel and whatever comes after it in the syllable, if anything. The word "man" consists of the onset, /m--/ and the closed vowel rime pronounced /an/.

The first syllable in "monkey" is /munk/. How would you spell it? In this word the /uh/ sound is spelled with an "o" as in oven or onion. So the syllable is spelled, m-o-n-k. The second syllable is /-kee/. The /k-k/ sound is spelled with a "k" as you would expect and the /ee/ sound is spelled "e-y," which is common at the end of a longer word.

So the strategy for spelling long words is to listen for the syllables, listen to the sounds in each syllable, and then decide if the sounds are spelled in the most common way or another way.

SPELLING WEAK VOWEL SOUNDS

Listen carefully to the sounds in the last syllable in these words:

wagon /WAG-uhn/, happen /HAP-uhn/, muffin /MUF-uhn/, woman /WO-muhn/

Does it sound like the vowel in the last syllable of each of these words is a closed "u" or /uh/ sound? It does, but the vowel is not a "u" in any of these words. What is the trick here? The trick is that the last syllable in each of the words is a weak syllable, and in weak syllables the vowel is weak. The weak vowel sound is /uh/ like the closed "u" sound as in "cut."

How are we supposed to remember how the weak vowel sound is spelled in all of these words? Again, the answer is to do lots of reading. We can also remember the "spelling pronunciation" of the words. When you hear and want to spell /WUF-uhn/, think of its spelling pronunciation, which is MUF-FIN.

Here are five more examples:

salad /SAL-uhd/, dozen /DUZ-uhn/, gossip /GOS-uhp/, bacon /BA-kuhn/, album /AL-buhm/

Did you notice that the weak vowel sound in each of the five words is spelled with a different vowel letter?

Most often the weak vowel sound is /uh/. However, in some words like "repeat" /rih- PEET/ the beginning syllable, /rih/, is the weak syllable. The vowel is weak and is pronounced /ih/ instead of /uh/ and is spelled with an e. Here are other examples:

behind /bi-HIND/, remain /ri-MAIN/, decide /di-CIDE/

Here are some examples of how three weak syllable endings are spelled:

/er/ after, acre, dollar, color, murmur, injure, glamour
/uhn/ dozen, organ, bacon, muffin, certain, fashion, medicine
/uhl/ fatal, cancel, ankle, pencil, fragile, idol, awful

SPELLING RULES

Now you will learn five great spelling rules.

RULE 1, the doubling rule: If a one-syllable word ends with a single consonant after a single vowel, double the consonant when adding an ending beginning with a vowel. Example: sit - sitting

Why do we double the final consonant? Take "hop," for example. If we add an ing without doubling the p, we would have "hoping" instead of "hopping." We double a final consonant to save the closed sound of the vowel when we add the ending.

Other examples: dab - dabbed, sad - sadder, thin - thinning

We don't double the final p in "heaping" because it comes after two vowel letters.

The doubling rule also applies to words of more than one syllable when the last syllable is strong, as in "regret/regretting." Other examples: beginning, upsetting, referring

CHALLENGE:

Write "get" with the ing ending.

Write "forget" with the ing ending. Hint: Which syllable is the strong syllable?

Write "admit" with the ed ending.

Why don't we double the r in "answering?" Hint: Which syllable is the strong one.

RULE 2: If a word ends with a "silent e," we drop it when we add the ed, ing, er, and est endings: hope - hoped - hoping

CHALLENGE:

Add the ed ending to "whine."

Add the ing ending to "write."

RULE 3: When we add es, ed, er, or est to a base word ending in y after a consonant, change the y to i: heavy - heavier

CHALLENGE:

Add the es to "cry."

Add the ed ending to "carry."

RULE 4: Ways of forming plurals:

Simply add s to most nouns. Examples: cats, dogs, books

Add es to nouns ending in s, x, z, ch, or sh. Examples: glasses, dishes, boxes

If the noun ends in y, change the y to i and add es. Examples: babies, candies

If the noun ends in ey, just add s. Examples: monkeys, alleys

CHALLENGE: Write the plural of these words: bird, wish, army, and donkey.

RULE 5: When i and e are together in a word, we must remember which comes first. Memorize this little jingle:

Write i before e, as in friend and field,
except after c, as in receipt and receive,
or when the sound is /ay/, as in neighbor and weigh,
but some, as in either, height, and seize, don't obey.

CHALLENGE: I will dictate some words for you to spell: shield, deceive, sleigh

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SPELLING TIPS

Here are some tips that may help you spell trouble words:

• The best tip of all is when you are in doubt about a spelling of a word, look it up in a dictionary. To master the dictionary go to Using a Dictionary.

• When starting to spell a hard word, listen to each syllable and try to remember how each of the sounds and rimes are spelled.

• For "icky" words such as "Wednesday" that are not spelled like they sound and for "tricky" words such as the ones having a "weak" vowel sound remember the actual pronunciation and the "spelling pronunciation." Examples:

  Wednesday: Actual pronunciation /wenz-dee/ and the "spelling pronunciation" /wed-nes-day/.

  cotton: Actual pronunciation /cah-tuhn/ and the "spelling pronunciation" /cot-ton/ (Other examples are organ /or-guhn/ /or-gan/, dozen /duh-zuhn/ /dah-zen/, muffin /muf-uhn/ /muf-fin/, bacon /bay-kuhn/ /bay-kon/, Cajun /kay-juhn/ /kay-juhn/.

• A way to practice remembering the spelling of a difficult word such as "thorough:"
  1. Look carefully at the word in print and pronounce the word slowly syllable by syllable.
     
  2. Look at each word part to see if it is spelled the way you would expect. (Notice in "thorough" the /er/ sound is spelled or and the ending /oh/ sound is spelled ough.)
     
  3. Close your eyes and see if you can picture the word in your mind. If you can't, take another look.
     
  4. Write the word from memory.
     
  5. Check to see that you spelled the word correctly.

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