Spelling Rules

 

Did you know there are 44 English speech sounds? These sounds are used for reading and spelling. Eighty percent of the words in English follow these speech sound spellings. The word cat is made up of three speech sounds. The word eight is made up of two speech sounds. If you know how to spell these 44 speech sounds, it will greatly help your spelling and reading.

The 44 speech sounds are presented in our series English Reading and Spelling for the Spanish Speaker. Practice with these speech sounds are provided in this six workbook series. Different spelling rules are also taught in the series. Did you know these following spelling rules?

The FSZL rule. The letters f, s, z, and l are doubled after a short vowel sound, for example: pass, puff, jazz and bell. Each of those four words has three speech sounds.

The ck rule. The /k/ sound is spelled with ck when the /k/ sound follows a short vowel sound, for example, back, pick, deck, puck, pocket.

The v rule. No words in English end with a v so a silent e is added to the end of the word, for example: love, give, have. Each of these three words has three speech sounds.

E is the most used letter in English. When e is added to a three phoneme word the first vowel becomes a long vowel, for example: cap becomes cape; bit becomes bite, hop becomes hope. The words cap and cape each have three speech sounds.

 The words horse, cheese, and house have a silent e at the end so they do not look like plurals.

 Every syllable has a vowel sound. The word horse is one syllable but the word horses is two syllables.

 The above are some of the spelling rules that are presented in our series English Reading and Spelling for the Spanish Speaker.

Visit our website at www.Fisher-Hill.com to get more information about this series and other series in our English literacy program for Spanish-speaking teens and adults.