The word ‘homophone’ comes from the Greek words ‘homo’ meaning same and ‘phone’ meaning sound. Thus homophones are words that sound the same but are spelled differently and have different meanings. Homophones have arisen because of changes to pronunciation over … Continued
There are relatively few words in English which contain an unpronounced ‘w’ (see attached image). The challenge is to help students remember those words. First it is useful to have an understanding of the etymology of the words containing the … Continued
Spelling would be so much easier if we either pronounced the ‘k’ in words like ‘knife’, ‘knob’, ‘knit’ and ‘know’ or if the ‘k’ was just omitted. So, why do we have an unpronounced ‘k’ in these words? A little … Continued
An An apostrophe looks similar to an old fashioned 9 flying in mid-air like a kite. It comes from the Greek word apostropos meaning ‘the omission of a sound or syllable’. Apostrophes are used to show: Contractions: Two words are … Continued
It is not uncommon for students, especially younger students, to have difficulty pronouncing and discriminating between /f/, /th/ and /v/ which then has a flow-on impact on spelling words containing these graphemes correctly. If students pronounce ‘with’ as /wif/, it is … Continued