Spelling:

Patterns & Principles

It makes me sad
when spelling
mistakes ruin an
awesome post
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OUR ENGLISH ALPHABET HAS ONLY 26 LETTERS TO REPRESENT 45
DIFFERENT SOUNDS

AND SOME OF OUR LETTERS (LIKE C, Q, H, AND X) AREN’T VERY

USEFUL

ENGLISH HAS 5 VOWEL LETTERS TO REPRESENT 13 VOWEL SOUNDS

AND WE USE THEM ALL UP FOR OUR SHORT VOWELS, AS IN: pat,
pet, pit, pot, and put

SO WE DON’T HAVE ANY LETTERS LEFT FOR OUR LONG VOWELS,

AND THE RESULT IS CHAOS
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The Major Patterns in English Language Are:

Sound Patterns

Structural Patterns

Meaning Patterns
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1. Sound Patterns
A. Vowel patterns

1. Short vowels: and, when, in, on, but

2. Long vowels: make, she, time, home, use

3. R-controlled vowels 4. Diphthongs

1. aw/au straw, saw, cause
1. ar: cart, sharp, large,
2.ee/ie/ea career, pier, near
2. er: germ, tiger, feather
3. ir: bird, circle, birthday 3. i/igh/y cry, my, sigh
4. or: short, story, orbit 4. oy/oi toy, coin, noise
5. ur: turtle, burn, purple 5. ow/ou cow, now, cloud
 1. Sound Patterns
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B. Consonant patterns

1. Words: CVC/CVCC
Ex: Bat, tent

2. Blends- bl, fl, dr, cr,

Ex: Black, floor, drag, crib

3. Digraphs- th, ph, ch, kn

Ex: there, phone, cheese, knife
9/3/20XX
2. Structural Patterns
1. Syllables: Eat Ea/ting
2. Stress patterns: Afternoon, Cookie, Departure
3. Adding endings to base words:
watch + ing = watching ; watch + ed= watched
4. Doubling(short vowel ending, double the consonant)
Stop + ing = stopping ; drop +ing = dropping
5. Contractions: I’m, Can’t, don’t
 Doubling

When adding ‘ed’, ‘ing’ or ‘er’ to a word, if the original

word ends with a single vowel followed by a single
consonant, double the consonant.
Shop – Shopped Hop – Hopped Fit – Fitted
Run – Runner Hit – Hitting
3. Meaning Patterns
1. Compound words: notebook(C),
full moon(O)

1.Prefixes : discover, misspell,

preview, antibody

4 Suffixes :helpful, lovely,

contentment, singing
1. Homographs are 2. Homonyms are
3. Homophones are
words that have the words that are spelled
words that sound the
same spelling but the same and sound
same when spoken but
different meanings and the same but have
have different meanings
different pronunciations different meanings
and are spelled
Example: Example:
differently. Example:
1.De-sert-abandoned 1.Fair: equal rules,
1. allowed: give
person or something no cheating
permission
(pronounced as De) Fair: Light
complexion of hair or aloud- speak loudly
Des-ert- area of land
(pronounced as Des) skin 2. Flower- of any plant
2. Pen: Holding an Flour- a powder of the
2.Tear: drop of water
area for animals grains
falling from eyes
Tear: Rip something Pen: Writing tool
Words that are related by meaning will often have
similar spelling patterns. How?

Let’s watch to understand more about homographs,

homonyms, and homophones

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_7FR59AKmQ&t=187s
Individual / Pair Activity:
1.Choose 2 words and make as many
words as you can.
2.Build webs of words to illustrate the
relationships. The words are:

1. Hand 2. Port 3. Equal

4. Auto 5. Micro 6. Form