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Alphabetic principle

English spelling is based on the alphabetic principle. In an alphabetic writing system, letters are used to represent speech sounds, or phonemes. For example, the word pat is spelled with three letters, p, a, and t, each representing a phoneme, respectively, /p/, /?/, and /t/.[5]
The spelling structures for some alphabetic languages, such as Spanish, are comparatively orthographically transparent, or orthographically shallow, because there is nearly a one-to-one correspondence between sounds and the letter patterns that represent them. English spelling is more complex, a deep orthography, partly because it attempts to represent the 40+ phonemes of the spoken language with an alphabet composed of only 26 letters (and no diacritics). As a result, two letters are often used together to represent distinct sounds, referred to as digraphs. For example t and h placed side by side to represent either /θ/ or /e/.
English has absorbed many words from other languages throughout its history, usually without changing the spelling of those words. As a result, the written form of English includes the spelling patterns of many languages (Old English, Old Norse, Norman French, Classical Latin and Greek, as well as numerous modern languages) superimposed upon one another.[6] These overlapping spelling patterns mean that in many cases the same sound can be spelled differently and the same spelling can represent different sounds. However, the spelling patterns usually follow certain conventions.[7] In addition, the Great Vowel Shift, a historical linguistic process in which the quality of many vowels in English changed while the spelling remained as it was, greatly diminished the transparency of English spelling in relation to pronunciation.
The result is that English spelling patterns vary considerably in the degree to which they follow rules. For example, the letters ee almost always represent /i?/, but the sound can also be represented by the letters i and y. Similarly, the letter cluster ough represents /?f/ as in enough, /o?/ as in though, /u?/ as in through, /?f/ as in cough, /a?/ as in bough, /??/ as in bought, and /?p/ as in hiccough, while in slough and lough, the pronunciation varies.
Although the patterns are inconsistent, when English spelling rules take into account syllable structure, phonetics, etymology and accents, there are dozens of rules that are 75% or more reliable. [8]
A selection of phonics patterns is shown below.

[edit] Vowel phonics patterns

• Short vowels are the five single letter vowels, a, e, i, o, and u, when they produce the sounds /?/ as in cat, /?/ as in bet, /?/ as in sit, /?/ or /ɑ/ as in hot, and /?/ as in cup. The term "short vowel" is historical, and meant that at one time (in Middle English) these vowels were pronounced for a particularly short period of time; currently, it means just that they are not diphthongs like the long vowels.
• Long vowels have the same sound as the names of the vowels, such as /e?/ in baby, /i?/ in meter, /a?/ in tiny, /o?/ in broken, and /ju?/ in humor. The way that educators use the term "long vowels" differs from the way in which linguists use this term. In classrooms, long vowel sounds are taught as having "the same sounds as the names of the letters". Teachers teach the children that a long vowel "says" its name.
• Schwa is the third sound that most of the single vowel spellings can represent. It is the indistinct sound of many a vowel in an unstressed syllable, and is represented by the linguistic symbol /?/ or /?/; it is the sound of the o in lesson, of the a in sofa. Although it is the most common vowel sound in spoken English, schwa is not always taught to elementary school students because some find it difficult to understand. However, some educators make the argument that schwa should be included in primary reading programs because of its vital importance in the correct enunciation of English words.
• Closed syllables are syllables in which a single vowel letter is followed by a consonant. In the word button, both syllables are closed syllables because they contain single vowels followed by consonants. Therefore, the letter u represents the short sound /?/. (The o in the second syllable makes the /?/ sound because it is an unstressed syllable.)
• Open syllables are syllables in which a vowel appears at the end of the syllable. The vowel will say its long sound. In the word basin, ba is an open syllable and therefore says /be?/.
• Diphthongs are linguistic elements that fuse two adjacent vowel sounds. English has four common diphthongs. The commonly recognized diphthongs are /a?/ as in cow and /??/ as in boil. Three of the long vowels are also technically diphthongs, /a?/ (ah-EE or "I"), /o?/, and /ju?/, which partly accounts for the reason they are considered "long".
• Vowel digraphs are those spelling patterns wherein two letters are used to represent a vowel sound. The ai in sail is a vowel digraph. Because the first letter in a vowel digraph sometimes says its long vowel sound, as in sail, some phonics programs once taught that "when two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking." This convention has been almost universally discarded, owing to the many non-examples. The au spelling of the /??/ sound and the oo spelling of the /u?/ and /?/ sounds do not follow this pattern.
• Vowel-consonant-E spellings are those wherein a single vowel letter, followed by a consonant and the letter e makes the long vowel sound. The tendency is often referred to as the "Silent-e Rule", with examples such as bake, theme, hike, cone, and cute. (The ee spelling, as in meet is sometimes, but inconsistently, considered part of this pattern.)
• R-controlled syllables include those wherein a vowel followed by an r has a different sound from its regular pattern. For example, a word like car should have the pattern of a "closed syllable" because it has one vowel and ends in a consonant. However, the a in car does not have its regular "short" sound (/?/ as in cat) because it is controlled by the r. The r changes the sound of the vowel that precedes it. Other examples include: park, horn, her, bird, and burn.
• The Consonant-le syllable is a final syllable, located at the end of the base/root word. It contains a consonant, followed by the letters le. The e is silent and is present because it was pronounced in earlier English and the spelling is historical.

[edit] Consonant phonics patterns

• Consonant digraphs are those spellings wherein two letters are used to represent a single consonant phoneme. The most common consonant[dubious – discuss][where?] digraphs are ch for /t?/, ng for /?/, ph for /f/, sh for /?/, th for /θ/ and /e/. Letter combinations like wr for /r/ and kn for /n/ are technically also consonant digraphs, although they are so rare that they are sometimes considered patterns with "silent letters".
• Short vowel+consonant patterns involve the spelling of the sounds /k/ as in peek, /d?/ as in stage, and /t?/ as in speech. These sounds each have two possible spellings at the end of a word, ck and k for /k/, dge and ge for /d?/, and tch and ch for /t?/. The spelling is determined by the type of vowel that precedes the sound. If a short vowel precedes the sound, the former spelling is used, as in pick, judge, and match. If a short vowel does not precede the sound, the latter spelling is used, as in took, barge, and launch.

These patterns are just a few examples out of dozens that can be used to help children unpack the challenging English alphabetic code. While complex, English spelling does retain order and reason.

[edit] Handling of sight words and high frequency words within phonics

Sight words and high frequency words are associated with the whole language approach which usually uses embedded phonics. According to Put Reading First from the National Institute for Literacy,[9] embedded phonics is described as indirect instruction where "Children are taught letter-sound relationships during the reading of connected text. (Since children encounter different letter-sound relationships as they read, this approach is not systematic or explicit.)".
In systematic or explicit phonics, students are taught the rules and the exceptions, they are not instructed to memorize words. Memorizing sight words and high frequency words has not been found to help fluency. Put Reading First adds that "although some readers may recognize words automatically in isolation or on a list, they may not read the same words fluently when the words appear in sentences in connected text. Instant or automatic word recognition is a necessary, but not sufficient, reading skill. Students who can read words in isolation quickly may not be able to automatically transfer this "speed and accuracy".[9]

• There are words that do not follow these phonics rules, such as were, who, and you. They are often called "sight words" because they are memorized by sight with the whole language approach. These words should not be placed on a Word Wall to avoid confusion for a student learning beginning sounds.
• Teachers who use embedded phonics also often teach students to memorize the most high frequency words in English, such as it, he, them, and when, even though these words are fully decodable.

[edit] Different phonics approaches

[edit] Synthetic phonics

Main article: Synthetic phonics
Synthetic phonics is a method employed to teach phonics to children when learning to read. This method involves examining every letter within the word as an individual sound in the order in which they appear and then blending those sounds together. For example, shrouds would be read by pronouncing the sounds for each spelling "/?, r, a?, d, z/" and then blending those sounds orally to produce a spoken word, "/?ra?dz/." The goal of synthetic phonics instruction is that students identify the sound-symbol correspondences and blend their phonemes automatically. Since 2005, synthetic phonics has become the accepted method of teaching reading (by phonics instruction) in the United Kingdom and Australia. See Synthetic phonics.

[edit] Analytical phonics

Main article: Analytical phonics
Analytical phonics has children analyze sound-symbol correspondences, such as the ou spelling of /a?/ in shrouds but students do not blend those elements as they do in synthetic phonics lessons. Furthermore, consonant blends (separate, adjacent consonant phonemes) are taught as units (e.g., in shrouds the shr would be taught as a unit).
Analogy phonics is a particular type of analytic phonics in which the teacher has students analyze phonic elements according to the phonograms in the word. A phonogram, known in linguistics as a rime, is composed of the vowel and all the sounds that follow it in the syllable. Teachers using the analogy method assist students in memorizing a bank of phonograms, such as -at or -am. Teachers may use learning "word families" when teaching about phonograms. Students then use these phonograms to analogize to unknown words.
Embedded phonics is the type of phonics instruction used in whole language programs. Although phonics skills are de-emphasized in whole language programs, some teachers include phonics "mini-lessons" in the context of literature. Short lessons are included based on phonics elements that students are having trouble with, or on a new or difficult phonics pattern that appears in a class reading assignment. The focus on meaning is generally maintained, but the mini-lesson provides some time for focus on individual sounds and the symbols that represent them. Embedded phonics differs from other methods in that the instruction is always in the context of literature rather than in separate lessons, and the skills to be taught are identified opportunistically rather than systematically.
Owing to the shifting debate over time (see "History and Controversy" below), many school systems, such as California's, have made major changes in the method they have used to teach early reading. Today, most[which?] teachers combine phonics with the elements of whole language that focus on reading comprehension. Adams[10] and the National Reading Panel advocate for a comprehensive reading program that includes several different sub-skills, based on scientific research. This combined approach is sometimes called balanced literacy, although some researchers assert that balanced literacy is merely whole language called by another name.[11] Proponents of various approaches generally agree that a combined approach is important.[citation needed] A few stalwarts favor isolated instruction in Synthetic phonics and introduction to reading comprehension only after children have mastered sound-symbol correspondences. On the other side, some whole language supporters are unyielding in arguing that phonics should be taught little, if at all.[citation needed]