Tema 10.

- Los códigos ortográficos de la lengua inglesa.

- Relación sonido-grafía.
- Propuestas para la didáctica del código escrito.
- Aplicaciones de la ortografía en las producciones escritas.

Human language is the fundamental vehicle to convey our thoughts, needs

and feelings. Therefore, it is necessary to pay attention to the
communicative process among people by concentrating on its two basic
manifestations: oral and written language. With regard to writing in
English, this must not be seen merely as transcribed speech, as some of
the letters of the English alphabet do not match the sounds of the
language. Due to this irregularity, the sound-grapheme relationships need
to be worked on in the English-classroom.

Based on this view, the present essay aims to study the English spelling
code. For this purpose, I will divide this topic into four main sections. In
the first part, I will clarify the concepts of Graphetics and Graphology
and then I will explain the main writing systems. In the second part, I will
examine the English-spelling system, considering its main spelling rules.
Then in the third part, I will analyse the sound-spelling correspondences in
English as well as the importance of phonological awareness skills, reading
and spelling skills. Finally in the fourth part, I will concentrate on the
teaching of the written code, suggesting several activities to do so.

We deal with an essential topic since, according to The Organic Law on

Education 2/2006 passed on the 3rd of May, the goal of FLT in Primary
Education is the acquisition of CC. According to Canale and Swain, one of
the competences derived from this is grammatical competence, which
refers to the correct use of the linguistic code in both the oral and the
written forms. In addition to that, the FL Curriculum for Primary
Education emphasizes the significance of this topic by including in its 2 nd
block of contents the association of letters to the sounds of the alphabet.

FIRST
In order to develop the first part of this topic, I will define the concepts
of Graphetics and Graphology. On the one hand, we understand Graphetics
as the study of the physical aspects of the symbols that constitute writing
systems and its unit is the symbol. On the other hand, Graphology is the
study of the linguistic contrasts that writing systems convey and its unit is
the grapheme which can be defined as the smallest contrastive unit in a

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writing system that might produce a change in meaning. As we know, the
main graphemes of the English language are the 26 units that make up the
alphabet. When using these units in writing, we also use punctuation, which
has two functions. These are: to enable stretches of language to be read in
a coherent way and the use of suprasegmental features which give an
indication of the rhythm and tone of speech.

Apart from this, it is worth mentioning that there are several types of
writing systems among which we find on the one hand, there phonological
systems, which show a clear relationship between the symbols and sounds
of language and on the other hand, the non-phonological systems which do
not show a clear relationship between the symbols and the sounds . In this
regard, I must point out that both English and Spanish are phonological
alphabetic systems, which means that they show a direct correspondence
between graphemes and phonemes. However, these languages vary greatly
in their regularity and whereas Spanish has a very regular system, English
is notorious for its irregularity as it presents a great lack of
correspondence between graphemes and phonemes which is reflected in
the number of spelling rules that students have to learn.

SECOND
After having considered these general aspects, I will go on to examine
the English-spelling code.

In general terms, English spelling is considered to be difficult and

unpredictable. However, recent studies show that English is approximately
75% regular. The problem is that the 400 or so irregular spellings are
among the most frequently used words, which gives the impression of
irregularity. At this point, looking at the history of the language will help us
to achieve a better understanding of English spelling.
In the Anglo-Saxon period an alphabet of 24 graphemes had to cope
with a sound system of 40 phonemes. Consequently, many sounds had to be
signalled by combinations of letters. Later in the Norman period, French
scribes introduced new orthographic conventions and then during the
printing process many early printers were foreign and used their own
spelling rules.
In the 15th century, the Great Vowel Shift, which was a massive sound
change affecting the long vowels, was the main reason for the diversity of
vowel spellings. Some letters also became silent during this period, such as
the <k> of know. Later in the 16th century a new trend appeared: Latin and
Greek etymology was reflected in the spelling of words. For example, a <g>

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was added in reign. Finally in the 17th century a good amount of words were
borrowed from French, Spanish and Italian. This caused new patterns of
spelling, like <ll> in armadillo. Therefore, English is an amalgam of different
traditions.

As I said before, as a result of this irregularity and diversity, students

need to learn some spelling rules. In what follows, I will highlight the most
relevant ones.
Firstly, in English, some words are always written with capital letters
such as the days of the week, months and holidays; proper names and place
names, nationalities and languages and titles of books, films and magazines.
Secondly, many English words double their last consonant before
endings -ed, -ing, -er and -est. It happens when the consonant is after a
vowel and the stress falls on the last syllable as in the word “ omitted”.
Thirdly, only nouns have plural and there are several plural formation
rules:
- The 1st one is that most nouns add -s to the singular: cat / cats.
- The 2nd one is that if the singular ends in -s, -ch, -sh, -ss, -x or -z, the
plural ending is –es: bus/buses.
- The 3rd one is that if the singular ends in -o, the plural ending is usually
–es: tomato/tomatoes.
- The 4th one is that if the singular ends in consonant followed by -y,
this is replaced by i, so the plural ending is –ies: spy/spies.
- The 5th one is that if the singular ends in -f or -fe, the plural ending
changes to –ves: wife/wives.
- Lastly, other nouns have an irregular plural: child/children, man/men,
person / people.
However these rules also present some exceptions.
Fourthly, adjectives usually change into adverbs by adding -ly: nice /
nicely.

THIRD
After having considered the English-spelling code, I will go on to analyse
the main sound-spelling correspondences in the English language. For this
purpose, I will look at the main correspondences between the sound of
vowels and consonants and their spelling. The following rules do not intend
to be exhaustive; unfortunately, there are many exceptions.

Regarding vowels, we can distinguish 12 vowel sounds, each of which has

several graphic representations:
/ i:/ ee tree / ɔ: / or horse

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 aw saw
e complete ou bought
ie piece a talk
ea sea ore before
ey key oor door
ou four
rich,
i, y
city u sugar
e
pretty o woman
/ ɪ / a / ʊ /
village oo good
ie
ladies ou could
u
busy
oo food
o do
e set
ou group
ea dead
u rude
/ e / a many / u: /
ew knew
ay says
ue blue
ie friend
ui juice
oe shoe
u sun
o son
a cat
/ æ / /ʌ/ ou country
ai plait
oo blood
oe does
a pass ir, yr
bird
ar car er,
her
ear heart ear
/ ɑ:/ / ɜ: / turn
er clerk ur
word
al palm wor
journey
au aunt our
i possible
e gentlemen
o gone a vegetable
/ə/
a was u difficult
/ ɒ /
ou cough ar particular
ure-furniture
au because er mother
or doctor

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Regarding consonants and semiconsonants we can distinguish 24 consonant
sounds each of which has several graphic representations:
pp apple
/p/ /b/ b ball
p play
t
tea
tt
utter d day
/t/ th /d/
Thomas dd daddy
-ed
jumped
past
k kind
c cake
g ago
/k/ cc occur /g/
gh ghos
qu conquer
ch Christmas
ch chain
j jam
tch watch
g gin
/ tʃ / ture nature / dƷ /
dg bridge
teous righteous
gg suggest
stion question
f foot
v violet
ff off
/f/ /v/ f of
ph photo
ph nephew
gh enough
/θ/ th thief /ð/ th there
s so
s roses
ss pass
/s/ /z/ z zoo
c niece
zz dizzy
sc science
/ʃ/
sh shoe
ch machine
s sure
ss Russian si vision
ti nation /Ʒ/ s measure
si mansion ge prestige
sci conscience
ci special
ce ocean

h hat m mum
/h/ /m/
wh who mm swimming

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 n nose ng sing
nn funny nk sink
/n/ /ŋ/
kn know ck uncle
gn foreign nx anxious
r rat
l colour rr carry
/l/ /r/
ll yellow wr wrong
rh rhythm
y yes w west
i onion wh white
/j/ /w/
u union qu quick
ew new gu language

Apart from these sound spelling correspondences, we must not forget

that there are also some letters in certain words which do not correspond
to any sound in the word's pronunciation. These are known as silent letters
and we may highlight the following:

 B (mb, bt) comb, debt, doubt, plumber

 C in muscle, Connecticut
 G (gm, gn) foreign, gnaw
 H in heir, honest, honour, hour, rhythm, vehicle
 K (kn) knee, know
 L (lk, lm, ld) chalk, salmon, could
 N (mn) autumn
 S in aisle, island, isle
 T (stle, sten) castle, fasten; also mortgage, postpone
 W (wr, wh) wrong, who; also answer, sword

After having analysed the main sound-spelling correspondences in the

English language, I will concentrate now on the importance of phonological
awareness skills, reading and spelling skills and the relationship between
them.

On the one hand, phonological awareness refers to the knowledge of the

phonological structure of sentences and words and they constitute an
essential basis to the acquisition of spelling and reading skills although
they do not concern knowledge of letters. It does not develop naturally:
like other metalinguistic knowledge most people do not develop it unless
they are directly taught.

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 We can distinguish several levels of phonological awareness skills which
develop in a top-down direction: learners begin at the level of the whole
word and gradually move to smaller parts of the word like the manipulation
of single sounds in it. In this sense, the levels of phonological awareness can
be classified into shallower, intermediate and deeper.

On the other hand, reading and spelling skills which are connected to
the written word are needed to read and spell successfully . Therefore,
we assume that, in order to be good readers and spellers, knowledge of
letters is needed in addition to knowledge of the phonological structure.
In this sense, spelling and reading skills include aspects like: Understanding
of the alphabetic principle, mastering the regular sound-spelling
correspondences, mastering spelling rules, memorizing irregular words,
decoding, background knowledge and recognizing words as wholes and not as
individual letters.

FOURTH
Once phonological, reading and spelling skills have been considered, I will
concentrate now on the teaching of the written code in English.
According to Matthews, we can distinguish five subskills related to writing,
which are graphic skills, that is writing words correctly including aspects
such as capitalization, punctuation and spelling; grammatical skills, the
ability to use a variety of sentence patterns and constructions ; stylistic
skills, the ability to express precise meaning in a variety of styles and
registers; rethorical skills ,the ability to use cohesion devices in order to
link parts of a text; and organisational skills, writing ideas with coherence
and summarize relevant points.

In the early stages of learning English, students will generally write very
little. Since The FL Curriculum for Primary Education stresses oral skills
over written skills, the approach to teaching the written code must have
two principles: every written item must have been introduced orally
before the written form, and writing activities must have a visual
support. Apart from these general principles, we must bear in mind that
spelling is a productive skill, which requires good visual memory and
knowledge of linguistic structure. Thus, to be a good speller, two abilities
are required: phonological strategies, which help us to cope with regular
spelling patterns and visual strategies, which helps us to cope with the
exceptions to regular spelling patterns:

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 As I said before, English spelling is illogical and difficult for children to
learn. There are four main ways in which children learn the spelling of
words. These are: visual style, learners respond to the shapes of words;
auditory style, learners recognize the relationship between sounds and
letters; kinaesthetic style, learners let the hand remember the kind of
movements made when producing words; linguistic style, learners see the
relationships between words based on grammar, meaning, etc. Because of
that, a multi-sensory approach to the teaching of the written code is
the best option.

After having considered the main aspects that we need to take into
account when teaching the written code in English, I will now suggest
several activities to do so.

As we know, it is very difficult for children to work with abstract

concepts like sounds. In order to understand the sound-grapheme
relationship, they need first to be familiarised with the alphabet. In this
way, they realize that letters, which are something real, are related to
the different sounds. In this sense, when selecting writing activities to
practise spelling, the next sequence must be followed:

Firstly, we need to work with word-recognition activities. In this stage,

the students notice the shape of the words and the number of letters so
they can make a mental picture of it. Some activities at this stage include
reading and matching a picture with a word, joining up dots to form
words and putting the letters of a word in order.
Then, we need to work with activities at word level. In this stage, the
teacher will not have to provide the students with the words they need,
they will think about the spelling of words by themselves. Some activities
that can be carried out at this stage are making a list, a personal
dictionary, crosswords, matching labels to pictures, anagrams and also
games like Bingo, Hangman and Odd Man Out.
After that, we need to work with activities at sentence-level. In this
stage, students will write the words they need and also will work with given
sentences doing activities like writing speech bubbles for cartoons,
sequencing sentences and copying and correcting mistakes.
Lastly, the teacher must provide the students with strategies to check
their spelling. In this way, students will be more autonomous in their own
learning process, which contributes to the development of two Basic
Competences: Learning to Learn and Autonomy and Personal Initiative.
These strategies are: using dictionaries (or picture dictionaries in the

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early stages), making personal dictionaries and classifying words
according to the similarities in their spelling.

To finish off this section, it is worth mentioning that when analysing or

correcting children´s written work in the activities, it is very important to
have a clear approach towards the correction of mistakes: this means that,
instead of trying to correct every single mistake, it is wiser to focus on
those mistakes that are really important to achieve comprehension of the
whole. According to Donn Byrne, we can follow four main correction
procedures which are correcting all mistakes, correcting mistakes
selectively, indicating mistakes so that students correct them and
letting the students to identify and correct their own mistakes.
In any case, we should not be over worried about mistakes since, as
Chomsky argued, “they are something natural and necessary and positive
evidence that learning is taking place”.

Conclusion
To conclude, I would like to remark that, as I have proven in this topic,
learning to write is a difficult achievement in life. As English teachers,
we must bear in mind that in the early stages of learning English, students
will generally write very little. Moreover, the youngest ones may be still
coping with some features of the writing process in their native language.
Therefore, we must be especially sensitive to the different writing
demands which we may find in our classroom and the different strategies
of supporting their writing.

In this topic, I have studied the English spelling code. Firstly, I have
clarified the concepts of Graphetics and Graphology and I have explained
the main writing systems. After that, I have examined the English-spelling
code, considering its main spelling rules. Then I have analysed the sound-
spelling correspondences in English as well as the importance of
phonological awareness skills, reading and spelling skills and I have
concentrated on the teaching of the written code in English, suggesting
several activities to do so.

In order to develop this topic, the following bibliography has been used:
 BREWSTER, J. et al. (2003): The Primary English Teacher’s Guide.
Penguin English.
 HARMER, J. (2003): The Practice of English Language Teaching.
Longman.

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 LARSEN-FREEMAN, D. (2003): Techniques and Principles in
Language Teaching. Oxford University Press.
 VARELA, R. et al. (2003): All About Teaching English. Centro de
Estudios Ramón Areces.
 DONN BYRNE: “Teaching writing skills” Longman, London 1988.
 DANIEL MCLAREN AND DANIEL MADRID: “TEFL in Primary
Education” Universidad de Granada, 2004

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