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
According to Butler (2014), editor of the Macquarie dictionary, ‘all right’ is in the flux of change to ‘alright’, making it similar to already, also and always. Butler suggests that in the future ‘all right’ will be used to mean … Continued