Day 64 Communication (Spelling Strategies I)

Spelling Strategies

The instructor will begin with a review of vowels and consonants, and the phonetics that go along with them. This will be the beginning of several spelling lessons found in Academic Studies English: Support Materials and Exercises for Spelling Strategies, Which can be downloaded from:

http://library.nald.ca/item/5745

Spelling and Phonics

Consonants

BCDFGHJKLMNPQRSTVWXYZ

Phonetics: Means spelling a word the way it sounds. When using phonetics, use ‘/b/ to show that you are making a sound.

Examples: cat /kat/, knot /not/, carrot /karot/

Soft and Hard “C” and “G”

Hard C: Sounds like /k/ in words like cat, coffee, practical
Soft C: When a C is followed by an “e, i, or y”, the c almost always makes an /s/ sound.

Examples: centre, percent, circus, precise, cyst, or fancy

Hard G: Sounds like /g/ in words like game, go, giggle.
Soft G: When a G is followed by an “e, i, or y”, the g usually makes a /j/ sound

Examples: gem, page, gym, giant

Vowels

The vowels are: AEIOU and sometimes “y”
Vowels have a short sound and a long sound.

___Short _____Long

A __/ă/ hat ____/ā/ cake
E __/ĕ/ hem___ /ē/ heat
I __/ĭ/ litter____ /ī/ lighter
O __/ŏ/ knot ____/ō/ smoke

U __/ŭ/ butter ___/jū/ mule, cute OR
_______________/ū after l, r, s, t, ch, or sh, suit, tutor, chute

Long and Short Vowel Rules

Short Vowel + Consonant + no letter V + C + Ǿ hat_, sit_
Vowel + Consonant + Consonant V + C + C ant. Flint

Long Vowel + Vowel V + V boat, meat
Vowel + Consonant + Vowel V + C + V snake, knife

Long Vowel Combinations

A: ai and ay mail, day

E: ea, ee treat, been (ea can also be long a, break; and short e, bread.)

I: ie, igh, y, ind, die, light, cry, behind

O: oa, oe, ow boat, hoe, snow

U: ue, ui glue, fruit

Schwa Sound

Any vowel can make the schwa sound. It is usually in an unstressed syllable. It’s symbol is /ə/

about, taken, pencil, eloquent, supply

Lesson 1: ie or ei

Spelling List

heir
deceive
either
priest
height
foreign
veil
chief
efficient
convenient
weird
review
patient
receipt
niece
ancient
fiery
friend
field
weigh

Rule: “I” before “E”, except after “C”, or if it says /ā/ as in neighbour and weigh

belief, grief, chief, mischief, relieve
receive, receipt, deceive, perceive
freight, veil, eight

Exercise 1: Place each of the spelling list words under the correct heading.

____‘ie’ __‘ei’ after ‘c” ___‘ei’ as /ā/_____ exceptions ‘ei’____ exceptions ‘ie’


Exercise 2: Write sentences for two spelling list words from each column.

‘ie’
‘ei’ after ‘c’
‘ei’ as /ā/
Exception ‘ei’
Exception ‘ie’

Students will then complete Exercises 3 - 5 from Academic Studies English: Spelling Strategies, p.10 - 12.