The English Language has numerous irregularly spelled words. Filipino children whose first language has a reasonably consistent spelling system find it very difficult to become accustomed to multiple value for a single symbol or many symbols for a single sound. It confuses them that a sound is written in several ways or that the same group of letters may represent different sounds, with no hard and fast rules to tell when to use one kind of graphic symbol and when to use another. Take the letter sequence ough. How many sounds does it represent? Note the following sound values:/O/ as in thought, bought, sought; /of/ as in though, thorough; /ap/ as in hie-cough. But the difficulty does not end there. Not only does one symbol present many sounds but one sound can be represented by many symbols. The sound /O/ is found in words like faucet, low, chalk, soft, broad, caught, bought, and water. Other sounds are represented by an equal or greater number of symbols which made it difficult or writers. For example; there are many ways to spell the long I /i/ sound: notice the following spellings of this sound: pie, sigh, buy, kite, white and bye. A basic sight vocabulary needs to be developed by pupils pertaining to words which do not follow a rather consistent sound/symbol relationship.
By: Gemma Baluyot Canare | Duale Elementary School Limay District Teacher I |
