How the alphabet works

by Anthea Fraser Gupta (University of Leeds, a.f.gupta@leeds.ac.uk)
for the Committee for Linguistics in Education .

Note: This file has been written in Word 2000. If you are reading this in Word 6, 7 or 2000 you should be able to read it correctly, including the phonetics. But if you are using some other viewer, you may have problems, especially with the phonetics, which use the embedded True Type fonts from the Summer Institute of Linguistics, downloadable from <www.sil.org>. Many phonetic symbols are ordinary letters from the Roman alphabet. In this document I use seven phonetic symbols which are not in the normal alphabet. They are:

The way in which we spell English words now is based on the pronunciation of the fourteenth century. However English pronunciation has changed a great deal in the last six hundred years. English has also adopted words from many other languages, often with their foreign spelling unchanged. All this means that English spelling is extremely irregular. It also means that English spelling is not based on any accent of English – it works equally well (or badly) whatever accent you speak with.

A spelling system in which letters and sounds corresponded perfectly would create some problems. Firstly, it would have to be based on a specific accent. Secondly, in English we often like to keep a word intact, even when it changes its pronunciation in related words (e.g. photograph , photography ) – this can help to make reading easier. A spelling system that was perfectly linked to sound would have to reflect the changes in the way the vowels are pronounced in these words.

When children learn to read and write they do have to memorise many correct spellings, but they also have to learn some of the patterns of the relationship between the pronunciation and the spelling, so that they can make a guess at how to read and write words whose spelling they have not learnt by heart. One way that can help to master the English writing system is to learn some of the common relationships between letters and sounds.

It can be helpful to show children some of the common relationships between sounds and spelling. One of the relationships between sounds and spelling is that between phonemes and letters.

Common sound – letter correspondences

Accents of English differ in the number of phonemes they have, in the way they are pronounced, and in which words they are used. You should help children to learn the correspondences in their own accents.

Consonants

It is much easier to learn the most common sound-letter correspondences in consonants than it is in vowels. The various accents of English share most of the consonants.

Consonants on which most dialects are the same

Sound	Usual letters	Some words	Comments
/p/	p, pp	pen, sip, apple, happy.
/b/	b, bb	bat, crib, hobby, able.
/t/	t, tt	tap, hat, pretty, tree
/d/	d, dd	dog, sad, add
/k/	k, c, ck	cat, kiss, sack	This sound is complicated. In a few words a /k/ is spelt by ‘ch’ (e.g. Christmas ). A ‘qu’ usually represents /kw/ and an ‘x’ usually represents /ks/.
/g/	g, gg, gh	game, rug, leggy, ghost
/f/	f, ff, ph	field, photo,	A few words have ‘gh’ in the value /f/, always at the end of the word (e.g. rough , laugh ).
/v/	v	van, love, have	The letter ‘v’ almost never ends a word in English, but the sound /v/ does end words.
/s/	s, ss, c	sun, mouse, city, less	This is a complicated sound, with many possible letter combinations. Some are very rare. For example ‘ps’, with the sound /s/, begins a few rather learned words that children and unlikely to see in the early stages of reading (e.g. psychic )
/S/	sh	ship, fish	/S/ also can be heard in words with –tion . This sound occurs with many other letters representing it, which have to be memorised (e.g. mission, chef )
/Z/		leisure, pleasure	This sound has no very regular letter link. Some children may use it at the end of rouge , and it may occur occasionally at the beginning of some words that have come recently from French (e.g. genre ), which young children are unlikely to come across.
/z/	z, s	zoo, is, easy
/tS/	ch, tch	chip, each, watch	‘tch’ is not used at the beginning of words.
/dZ/	j, g, dge	jam, edge, giant	Find out if the children you are teaching pronounce dune and June in the same way. For many people both begin with /dZ/, but some people pronounce dune as /djun/.
/m/	m, mm	my, jam, jammy	Also –mb at the end of words, e.g. lamb , comb .
/n/	n, nn	new, can, funny	Also kn- at the beginning of words e.g. know .
/j/	y	yes	The letter ‘y’ is only used for a /j/ at the beginning of words. Many children will have a /j/ before the vowel /u/ in words like pure , tune .

Most of the differences in the accents of English are in the vowels. It is therefore best to think in terms of lexical sets . Lexical sets are collections of words which share a sound, even though the sound may vary from one place to another. For example, words in the GOAT lexical set sound very different in children who come from, for example, Newcastle, Leeds, London, Bristol and Cardiff, and would therefore have to be written differently in the IPA. But wherever the children come from they will have the same vowel in GOAT as they have in hope , go and moan .

Syllables can be stressed or unstressed (in happy , the first syllable is stressed, and in about the second syllable is stressed). In most British accents the vowels in unstressed syllables are often reduced – that is they tend to become the same as either the first sound of about , or as the last sound of happy , or perhaps the same as the vowel of FOOT. Unstressed syllables cause a lot of problems in spelling because we have no way of knowing why we choose between pairs that we pronounce the same (e.g. –ance/-ence, -ant/ -ent ).

In stressed syllables there are some strong sound-letter relationships. The word lists below are key words which point you to lexical sets in which all the words in the set share the same vowel. One of the major differences between accents is whether they are rhotic or not. Children who do not pronounce the ‘r’ unless it is before a vowel can be taught that letter combinations such as –ar, -er, -ir, -or, -ur correspond to particular vowel sounds. But children who pronounce the ‘r’ will find this confusing and should be taught to separate the vowel and the consonant, as they do in their speech.

Key word	Usual letters	Comments
KIT	i	Other letters used for this sound occasionally include ‘y’ (e.g. rhythm ). There are some less common spelling correspondences too (e.g. build , pretty , women, busy [1st syllables of last 3 words]).
DRESS	e, ea	‘e’ is the most usual spelling, with a few words having ‘ea’ (e.g. bread ). Some less common spellings too (e.g. friend , said ).
TRAP	a
LOT	o
CUT	u	A few words have ‘o’ for this sound (e.g. son , come ). There are some other less common spellings (e.g. young , blood ). For some children this will be the same vowel as FOOT.
FOOT	u, oo	Same spelling possibilities as CUT. For some children this is the same vowel as CUT. For some it is the same vowel as GOOSE. For others CUT, FOOT and GOOSE all have different vowels. The words in this lexical set vary from place to place too, with some children having book in the FOOT set and others having it with GOOSE.
BATH	a	For some children this is the same vowel as PALM (including most children in the south of England). For others it is the same vowel as TRAP. For others (especially in the South West of England) all three are the same. The words in this lexical set vary from place to place, with some children having the PALM vowel in half but the TRAP vowel in dance .
CLOTH	o	Same as LOT vowel for many. But same as THOUGHT vowel for others. Again, the words in the set vary from one speaker to another.
NURSE		The way the teacher deals with this vowel will vary a great deal depending on whether the children pronounce the ‘r’ or not. There is a great deal of variation in accent. Most children will have a single vowel between the /n/ and the /s/ which is used in many words spelt with –er, -ir, -or, and –ur . For some of them it may be the same vowel as SQUARE. Children who pronounce the ‘r’ may make more distinctions between words and may find it easier to work out the spelling relationships.
FLEECE	ee, ea	Some other less common spelling correspondences (e.g. thief , these , ski ).
FACE	a, aCe, ay	Some less common spelling correspondences (e.g. pain , they , great ).
PALM	a, al	not many words in this lexical set. In non-rhotic accents it’s the same vowel as START. For some it’s the same vowel as BATH. The words in this set vary a lot from one person to another.
THOUGHT	ou, au, aw, al	Same as CLOTH vowel for some people. The words in this set vary from one person to another, with some people having salt in this set, and others having salt with LOT.
GOAT	oCe, oa, o, ow	Also some less common sound-letter correspondences (e.g. sew ).
GOOSE	oo, ue, uCe, ew	For most children this is it is a different vowel from FOOT, but for some children it is the same.
PRICE	iCe, ie, i, y	Some less common sound-symbol correspondences (e.g. buy ). In some words, in some accents the vowel may become the same as the vowel of PALM, so that in some cases tire, tower and tar all sound the same.
CHOICE	oy, oi	For some children this may be the same vowel as that of PRICE
MOUTH	ou, ow	In some words, in some accents the vowel may become the same as the vowel of PALM, so that in some cases tire, tower and tar all sound the same.
NEAR		The way the teacher deals with this vowel will vary a great deal depending on whether the children pronounce the ‘r’ or not. Children who pronounce the ‘r’ are likely to use the vowel of KIT, FLEECE, or NURSE. Children who don’t pronounce the ‘r’ will have a vowel ending this word. As is usual in a set with a great deal of accent variation, there are many sound-spelling correspondences here.
SQUARE		The way the teacher deals with this vowel will vary a great deal depending on whether the children pronounce the ‘r’ or not. Children who pronounce the ‘r’ are likely to use the vowel of DRESS or of FACE. Children who do not pronounce the ‘r’ will end this word with a vowel. For some children it may be the same vowels as NURSE. There are many sound-spelling correspondences in this set, many of them involving ‘a’ (e.g. Mary, mare, pear, pair ).
START	a	Children who pronounce the ‘r’ in this word are likely to use the same vowel as TRAP or LOT. Children who do not pronounce the –r are likely to have the same vowel as PALM. In some cases the vowel of START is the same as the vowel of NORTH.
NORTH	o, a	Children who pronounce the ‘r’ in this word are likely to use the same vowel as CLOTH. Many children will have the same vowel as in FORCE. Some children will have the same vowel as START
FORCE	o	Children who pronounce the ‘r’ in this word are likely to use the same vowel as GOAT. Most children who speak accents which do not pronounce the ‘r’ are likely to have the same vowel as NORTH, but some will have the same vowel as GOAT and a few may have a separate vowel
CURE	u, oo	Children who pronounce the ‘r’ in this word are likely to use the same vowel as FOOT or GOOSE. Speakers of accents that do not pronounce the ‘r’ may have a special vowel in words of this set, or they may have the same vowel as NORTH and FORCE (so that moor and more are pronounced the same). Some children may have the same vowel as NURSE.

Teaching phonics

Children can become proficient in identifying speech sounds (either single phonemes or groups), and use these skills to help them read and spell. The skills and knowledge can be acquired simultaneously so that as children are learning the earliest steps in segmentation (identifying consonants at the beginning and end of words) they are also learning some of the letters which commonly represent those sounds. They can progress from easier skills to harder ones.

In teaching phonics it is essential to remember that you must build on the child’s own pronunciation and not require them to learn a new kind of pronunciation – the aim is to help children to identify the sound-letter correspondences that are meaningful for them. It is also best to begin with the most frequent and regular correspondences – because of the way English spelling has developed these are also the correspondences with little variation from one accent to another.

Development in phonic skills should go on alongside the recognition and memorisation of wole words, especially of very common words.

Note: The idea of lexical sets and much of the information about accents in this section is taken from:

Wells, J C. 1982. Accents of English . (3 volumes) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Sound	Usual Letters	Some words	Comment
/r/	r	red, lorry	Most children in England and Wales only pronounce an /r/ if a vowel follows it (this is a ‘non-rhotic accent’). They do not pronounce an /r/ in words like farm , washer . Some children (including most of those from Scotland, Ireland and the USA as well as some in south west and in north west England) pronounce an /r/ everywhere there is one in the spelling -- they have a ‘rhotic accent’. This is a very large accent difference and also makes a big difference to the way vowels are pronounced. Children who pronounce all cases of ‘r’ will be able to learn its sound in association with its spelling very easily. Childen with non-rhotic accents will need to learn the –Vr combinations signal particlar vowels, e.g. that ‘ar’ signals the PALM vowel.
/N/	ng	sing	This sound occurs before a /g/ or a /k/ in words like finger and think . Find out if the children you are teaching pronounce finger and singer the same (apart from the initial /f/ and /s/). Most children will have /Ng/ in finger but just /N/ in singer , and some will have in both. The common ending ‘-ing’ may be pronounced /IN/, or occasionally /INg/ but many English speakers have /In/.
/h/	h	hat, happy	In some accents of English this sound is little used.
/T/	th	think	}see next sound
/D/	th	then	}It is not important to distinguish /T/ from /D/, as it matters in very few words (thy/thigh !). Some children will have neither of these sounds but will use a /f/ and a /v/ where other accents use /T/ and /D/. Others will use /t/ and /d/.
/w/	w	was, well	Only used before a vowel. Find out if the children you are teaching pronounce witch and which identically (most children) or different. If they pronounce them the same, then there are many words with /w/ which begin with ‘wh’. Children who distinguish them have an extra phoneme, /ã/, in words like which, why .

Step	skill in:	knowledge of letters:
1	hearing and discriminating sounds and patterns, e.g. rhyme, words starting with same sound. Possibly the difference between consonant and vowel.
2	hearing speech sounds in initial position -- /p b t d k g m n f v s z h l w r/ -- which are commonly written with single letters.	p, b, t, d, k, g, m, n, f, v, s, z, h, l, w, r
3	hearing speech sounds in initial position which are commonly written with two letters -- /S T D/ (not necessary to hear the difference between /T/ and /D/).	sh, th. Also ‘ph’ as an alternative to ‘f’.
4	Hearing the same sounds in final position, plus /N/ in those who speak accents which have it in sing .	Same as above plus ss, ck, ll, and ng where relevant. /r/ occurs finally only in some accents. /h/ does not occur finally.
5	Hearing the vowels of KIT, DRESS, TRAP, LOT.	Reading i, e, a, and o in words where they have the values of these vowels (e.g. pen , hat , sit , thin, sing ).
6	Learning some common consonant clusters	e.g. tr, st, pr, sk, ng in dialects which have /Ng/ in sing . And combining them in words with the predictable vowels (e.g. trip, stick ).
7.	More clusters	Regular but complicated sound letter correspondences involving clusters -- x, qu
8	Vowels of FLEECE, FACE, GOAT, GOOSE, PRICE	Regular patterns corresponding – ee, aCe, oo, iCe / y
9	/j/ -- a consonant that is rather like a vowel.	y, c – two difficult letters that have two sharply different sounds.
10		‘silent letters’, especially ‘kn-‘, wr-and ‘-mb’ (lamb, knee, wrong ).
11	Other vowels according to accents of children.	By this time the children are able to read and create many words following regular patterns. The other sounds have very complicated sound-symbol correspondences which vary a great deal from one accent to another. Children who don’t have rhotic accents will need to be taught Vr correspondences.
12	Difference between stressed and unstressed syllables. Children can beat out the sounds and could use singing and music-making to help understand this concept.	The difficulty of unstressed syllables, especially word final unstressed –er, -a, -ant, -ent.

Sounds and Letters in English