Chapter Five: English Orthography

Summer, 2012

CIMA © 2008

Orthography

• General Definition:– All aspects of writing, including:

• spelling, punctuation, spacing, fonts, etc.

• Specific Definition:– The way that letters are used to

spell words

CIMA © 2008

Brief History of Writing Systems• Greek Contributions:

– First true alphabet. 1500 BC• Each sound of the language was

represented by a letter.

• Roman/Latin Contributions:– Romans added the letters v, x, and y to the

Greek alphabet. • Roman/Latin alphabet is now the most

widely used in the world.

The Early Greek Alphabet to the Roman Alphabet

CIMA © 2008

Alphabet Systems: Pros & Cons

• Pros:– Uses letters to represent sounds and words

that, in turn, represents ideas. – Only a small number of letters are needed

to generate a very large repertoire of words. • Cons:

– Regularity of spelling varies by language (Sp. = consistent b/t letter + sound, Eng = more complicated)

– Not always 1:1 letter-sound correspondence in Eng (e.g. “th” - /θ/ or /ð/)

Etymology

• Greek origin meaning “study of the true sense of words or discourse;” the history of words and their meanings

• Important concept when discussing literacy because English has been influenced by many languages, hence, the development of our non-fonetik spelling sistim.

CIMA © 2008

CIMA © 2008

Brief History of English Spelling

• Old English Influences (450 - 1100 A.D.)– Did not use the letters j, k, v, w, (q, z rarely)

• Used replaced letters to denote certain sounds:

– e.g., a kind of z (cursive), called the yogh (written

as 3, Arabic number)

– Alterations in word endings for some plurals

originate in Old English

• e.g., thief and thieves

CIMA © 2008

Brief History of English Spelling

• Middle English Influences (1066 - 1500

A.D.):

– Associated with the Norman Conquest

• Words from French and Latin added

– Replaced Old English ‘cw’ with ‘qu’

• e.g., cwen became queen

– Replaced h with gh

• i.e., origin of words tough and cough

CIMA © 2008

Brief History of English Spelling

• Modern English Influences (1500 A.D. - present)

– Approximately 1500-1755 A.D., many Anglo-

Saxon spellings were replaced by supposed

“Greek & Latin” roots

– e.g., “dette” became “debt” and

“doute” became “doubt”

Brief History of English Spelling• American English Influences (1700s -

Present) – American Spelling Book (Noah Webster)

• Reformed certain spellings, especially suffixes (e. g., our to or):

– our - From favour To favor

– re - From centre To center

– ce - From defence To defense

– ise - From recognise To recognize

CIMA © 2008

RECAP: Annotated History of English Spelling

• Old English

– Alterations in word endings for English plurals (E. g., thieves)

• Middle English

– Replaced:• ‘cw’ with ‘qu’• ‘g’ with ‘gh’

• Modern English– Anglo-Saxon

spellings replaced with Greek & Latin (e.g., debt & doubt)

• American English– Noah Webster– Reformed many

spellings, especially suffixes (E. g., -our to -or)

CIMA © 2008

Spelling Strategies

– The more ideas you can give students for practicing

spelling words, the better!

– Here are a few ideas:

• Personal dictionary

• Think alouds

CIMA © 2008

Personal Dictionary

Word In my language

Meaning Picture

Chanticleer

Sh not ChGallo Heroic

rooster

CIMA © 2008

Talk to Yourself Spelling Chart

The word is _____

I hear the consonant sounds ____

I see _____ letters

The spelling pattern is _____

The vowel says _____

Another word with the same spelling pattern as _____ is _____

Talk to Yourself Spelling Chart Example

The word is ___struggle__

I hear the consonant sounds _/strgl/___

I see ____8_ letters

The spelling pattern is ___”str”__

The vowel says /ʌ / and /ə/

Another word with the same spelling pattern as __struggle___ is __strange___

Consonant Cluster

• What is a consonant cluster? : two or more consonants in sequence (e.g., st-/-st, tr-, str-, spl-) e.g., past, trick, stress, splash

• It may occur at the beginning of a word (stop), at the end of a word (past), or within a word (pastry).

• Students whose L1 doesn’t have a CVC pattern may add a vowel at the end to facilitate pronunciation, which leads to spelling errors (e.g., test testo)

Mini Lesson on Consonant Clusters

• Not all languages have consonant clusters.• Consider the syllabic structure of other

languages (e.g., Japanese – predominantly CV).• In a small group, create a mini lesson to teach

CC (e.g., tr- as in “trick”) and CCC (e.g., str- a in “street”) patterns that is engaging.

• Demonstrate your lesson!

CIMA © 2008

What is working for you?

• Word walls (words, pictures, realia, L1 words)

• “Magnetic Poems” (Post-its with vocabulary)

• Human words (Ss wear/hold letters to make words)

• Rules that work with most words (e.g., “I” before “E” except

after “C”)

• Interactive Word Blender Game -

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/wordsandpictures/clusters/ble

nder/game.shtml

Word Walls - more than just displaying words

Word Walls of Synonyms

Symbolic Representation

Different Orthographies

• For students whose first language writing system is alphabetic and who have learned to read in that language, moving to English orthography (spelling conventions) may not be a huge leap. However, for those who have learned to read in a syllabic writing system (like that of Japanese, where a syllable like ka or mi is represented by a single graphic element) the leap is greater.

Japanese Orthography

Did you know …?

• If you know a little Spanish and have good pronunciation, you can read a page of a newspaper aloud to a native Spaniard without knowing what it means, and s/he will still understand you. This is impossible in Japanese.

• Japanese is one of the few languages in the world which cannot be read aloud without understanding the text you are reading.

.

3 Character Types• Japanese use a combination of 3

writing systems (Hiragana, Katakana & Kanji)

Ex. その猫はトムと呼びます。 (The cat is called “Tom”).

• Kanji are for content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs)

• Hiragana are for function words/grammatical markers (verb endings, particles)

• Katakana are for foreign words or onomotopeia

Semantic Radicals

• The basic kanji parts are called “radicals”, which combine with other kanji to create more complex characters.

• To some extent, it is possible to guess their meanings from the combination of parts.

Ex. 猫 (radical = animal/beast)

Different Orthographies

• Even when a student’s first language is written in alphabetic system, we cannot expect students to make the transition to English reading without considerable explicit instruction (Escamilla, 1999).

CIMA © 2008

Different Orthographies• Vowels and the Problems They Can

Cause– Roman alphabet still may need explicit

instruction.• English: 5 letters represent 11

vowel sounds, individually or in combination.

– The letter a alone represents at least four sounds: /ɑ/, /æ/, /ə/, /eɪ/, etc.

CIMA © 2008

Sounds That Do Transfer• Focus on what they bring with them in their

language system• Four of the ten most commonly spoken languages (other

than English) use the Roman alphabet system– Spanish– Vietnamese– Hmong– Haitian Creole

Orthography Activity

• Using the table provided, let’s explore components (4 - 5) of orthography in the language selected from the list by the team as compared to English.* When the table is complete, summarize 2 – 3 ways that your team will use this information in your future professional practice with CLD students.

* Add Chinese (Cantonese) to the list.

Language Exploration ExampleLanguage that the team explored: French

English

1) 26 letters (not including 5 accents and 2 ligatures) represent approx. 40 phonemes.

2) 7 vowel letters (with 5 diacritical marks) and 17 vowel sounds

3) Pronunciation is mostly based on spelling, but the sounds from those spellings are often different than English

4) Letters may not be pronounced at the end of words, depending on the beginning of the next word, but they often play an important role in determining number or gender (e and s).

5) Numerous phonemes can be spelled in more than one way (s and c, for example). Because so many letters can be silent, there are many opportunities for homonyms.

1) 26 letters represent 40-52 phonemes

2) 5 vowel letters and 15 vowel sounds 3) Sometimes the pronunciation varies with the same spelling (read)

4) Some letters do not have direct relation to the sounds in the word (height)

5) 19 consonant phonemes are spelled using more than one letter (enough)

Teaching Applications

• 1. Build background knowledge of a CLD student’s L1: L2 errors can inform the teacher on L1 transfers. 2. It might be helpful to ask French speaking students to think about silent letters in their L1 when learning words such as “know” and “knife”.

3. French “q”s are pronounced as English “k” s, so it might be helpful to give special influence to q words with French CLD students.

CIMA © 2008

Spelling and CLD Students• Remember that CLD students may find spelling

one of the most difficult tasks to master in English.

– Problems with phonemes (Consonants different

in different environment)

– Rules and exceptions

• Focus on multiple encounters with comprehensible

written language to increase spelling skills.

Orthographic Linguistic Investigations

• In small groups (or independently) use an article that is provided to you – You might have to refer to more than one article,

depending on the spelling feature you choose to investigate

• Select a spelling feature to investigate– i.e., a single letter/sound correspondence or a

combination of letters and their sound correspondences (e.g., frequency – L. frequentia "a crowding”)

CIMA © 2008

Orthographic Linguistic Investigations

• Use the IPA to give examples of the orthographic rule that you’re investigating (i.e., /eɪ/ can be spelled “aCe”, “ai”, “ea”, “a”, and “ay” (Freeman & Freeman, p. 113)

• See if you can find a pattern/explanation for the spelling rule that you’re looking into (i.e. use the dictionary to find out the etymology of the word – online etymology dictionary) http://www.etymonline.com

Why do we need to learn about orthography?

• Knowing phonological and spelling patterns of other languages allows us to understand why ELL students make orthographic errors the way they do in English. We can approach our instruction to meet the specific linguistic needs in the area of orthography. For example, we can predict possible phonological transfer from L1 to L2 (e.g., replace “th” with “d”, “j” with “h”, etc.) resulting in spelling errors.