Spelling “rules” and phonics generalizations

Have you ever heard the saying, “When two vowels go a-walking, the first one does the talking?”

This saying is often used to help students remember how to read words like bead or boat. Unfortunately, it does not work so well for words like great, chief, or broad. In 1963, reading researcher Ted Clymer found that only 18 out of 45 phonics generalizations were reliable at least 75 percent of the time. His study challenged traditional methods of teaching children to decode words in English and has influenced the debate about phonics instruction. (See http://www.edresearch.info/phonics.asp for information about follow-up studies.)

Helpful phonics generalizations

Phonics generalizations that involve consonants are usually reliable. In Clymer’s study, the 9 out of the 10 consonant generalizations were reliable 95% of the time. Some examples include:

• Use word sorts to encourage students to identify and analyze the patterns within words (Johnston, 2001).
  • Beginning readers can sort words into word families (for example, cat, bat, mat vs. rag, sag, bag)
  • More advanced may benefit from more abstract sorts, such as CVC, CVCe, or CV patterns.
• Making words activities teach students to use their knowledge of spelling patterns as well as letter-sound correspondence to create words from a group of letters.
• Teach students to use flexible strategies and use context to figure out a word that has two pronunciations, as in the words bow (The man with the bow tie took a bow.) or read (Tomorrow I will read the book that you read yesterday.)
• Remember that different students require different levels of instruction. Some students may seem to pick up on spelling patterns on their own, while other students may benefit from more explicit instruction.