What do you do when your children spell a word incorrectly or ask you how to spell a word? Do you: Tell them how to spell the word? Write the word correctly for them? Tell them to look at the word and see where it is wrong? Tell them to look it […]
Archive | Spelling
Silent ‘w’
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 unpronounced ‘w’. An unpronounced ‘w’ is most commonly followed by the letter ‘r’ (wrap, wrist, […]
Why Don’t We Pronounce the ‘k’ in Knife???
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 history, may help not only explain this anomaly but help students with remembering the correct […]
Silent ‘b’
Learning to spell many English words correctly can be a long and difficult journey. Why for example do we have a silent ‘b’ in words like bomb, climb, debt and doubt? Often the answer lies in tracing the word back to its origin. For example, the English word ‘doubt’ comes from the Old French word ‘doute’, which […]
Master Morphemes
Morphemes are the smallest unit of meaning in a word and each morpheme provides either semantic (an understanding of meaning) or syntactic (set of rules, principles, and processes that govern the structure of sentences) information. Many English words often consist of multiple morphemes (base or root words, prefixes and suffixes). Base words and prefixes contain […]