Letter Sounds Matter

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Which is more important – knowing the name of letters or knowing the sound of the letters? The importance of knowing letter names versus letter sounds in early literacy development has long been debated. Similarly, should we be teaching letter … Continued

An Owed to the Spelling Checker

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    By Jerry Zar Northwestern Illinois University Copy and paste this poem into a word document and then run it through the normal spell checker. Although a few of the words will be underlined in blue (indicating a grammatical … Continued

Woman-Women

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Why do we pronounce the ‘o’ in ‘woman‘ as /oo/ like in ‘book’, whereas the ‘o’ in ‘women‘ in pronounced /i/ like in ‘insect’? According to Crystal (2012), in Old English the word for ‘woman’ was ‘wifman’ (literally wife-man, but … Continued

dec

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Discussing the etymology of words can be a useful strategy for increasing students’ vocabulary and the correct spelling of related words. Words containing the root ‘dec’ meaning ‘ten’ comes from both Latin (decem) and Greek (deka). In the metric system … Continued

Take Two

posted in: Spelling | 0

Take Two is a modified Scrabble game. It is a quick game that is useful for practising spelling skills and word manipulation. Take a Scrabble game, remove all the tiles and place the tiles upside down in the middle of … Continued