Phonics can help with the 50% that are spelled in a way related to how they are pronounced.  Tricks have to be used to remember the spelling of the words that are not spelled phonemically.

Tricks:
1. Use a mnemonic device
    Associate the spelling with a picture related to the meaning
 

2. We can also learn the spelling pronunciation of a word.

1. pronounce the word as it is actually spelled
2. keep this in mind when spelling the word.
3. Traditional English often spells words as they were pronounced when Chaucer was writing until the reign of Elizabeth.

 

The biggest problem is that we are the only people on earth that
use these non-Latin conventions - everyone else sticks with the Italian
sound-symbol values. 

Should we change.  We should have a parallel system that ESL students can
use.  It is not that big of a shift because many words did not shift.

they stayed the same, play used to be pl'y plah-ee.  the same as plie.
This is the way that australians pronounce DAY dah-ee.
It is the pronunciation that professor Higgens tried to change.
 
 
 

<bold> Steve writes below about crib sheets from the Washington Post

but SSS Alun Bye was hot stuff on these.  He gave

an ilustrated talk at the SSS Edinburgh conference on them,and

how u remember how to spel ENGINE but I hav forgotten how u do.

and I remember LOOK with two eyes in it.

I cant remember if he wrote it up for the Proseedings - posibly

not because it did need constant ilustration.
 

Does enyone stil hav some of Alun's material they could send?

Plus the moral that: - 

It does make English spelling look even sillier that children should

have to go to such expedients to try to remember its litl

foolishnesses!
 

vy

</bold><x-quoted>

CRIB SHEET from the Washington Post
 

English is a funny language, filled with words that

sound the same but that are spelled differently and

have different meanings. Of course, it doesn't seem

very amusing when you're  taking a spelling test or

writing up a report and you can't remember whether you

want rain, rein or reign. 
 

Paul Freedman, a colleague of ours at The Post, came

up with these neat ways to keep some spellings

straight (and we mean "straight," not "strait"): 
 

peak: This is the top of a mountain, which is what the

A looks like if you capitalize it and draw it big. 
 

peek: This is what you do when you sneak a look at

something. Put some dots in the Es and those are your

prying eyes. 
 

reign: See that G? That same letter is in king. A king

reigns. 
 

Rain, on the other hand, is the wet stuff that falls

From the sky. Or, as they say in a famous play: The

rain in Spain falls mainly in the plain. 
 

Rein: That's the third one. You rein in a horse, so

remember this: rein has an E, which is the last letter

in "horse." You rein in a horse. An "in" comes after

the E. 
 

pour: That's what you do with a liquid, and that U

looks like a big cup. 
 

poor: That's what you are if you don't have any money.

Imagine that those two Os in the middle are actually

zeroes, which is how much money you have. 
 

pore: Finally, this is what you do when you read

something really closely. Think of the last two

letters in pore, which are the first two letters in

read: pore read.

DRAFT
Longitude /lonjituud/ and latitude  /lattituud/ are not hard to spell but they are difficult to remember the associated meaning.  Long suggest length which is a miscue.  It is rather the distance from the pole.  The great circles of longitude are vertical when viewed on the map.  Latitude are the east west lines on the map.  

      longitude, latitude [shwa spelled with an i in both]
      aw vs ae mouth shape. 
 

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us. Write: Cribsheet, KidsPost, The Washington Post,

1150 15th St. NW, Washington, DC 20071. Or

e-mail it (with "Cribsheet" in the subject line) to:

kidspost@washpost.com. </x-quoted>