1. Chapter Five: English
Orthography
Summer,
2012

2. Orthography
• General Definition:
– All aspects of writing, including:
• spelling, punctuation, spacing, fo
nts, etc.
• Specific Definition:
– The way that letters are used to
spell words
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3. 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.
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4. The Early Greek Alphabet to the
Roman Alphabet

5. 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/)
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6. 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.
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7. 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
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8. 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
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9. 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”
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10. 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

11. RECAP: Annotated History of
English Spelling
• Old English • Modern English
– Alterations in word – Anglo-Saxon spellings
replaced with Greek &
endings for English Latin (e.g., debt &
plurals (E. doubt)
g., thieves) • American English
• Middle English – Noah Webster
– Replaced: – Reformed many
spellings, especially
• „cw‟ with „qu‟ suffixes
• „g‟ with „gh‟ (E. g., -our to -or)
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12. Spelling Strategies
– The more ideas you can give students for practicing
spelling words, the better!
– Here are a few ideas:
• Personal dictionary
• Think alouds
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13. Personal Dictionary
Word In my Meaning Picture
language
Chanticlee Gallo Heroic
r rooster
Sh not
Ch
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14. 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 _____
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15. 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___

16. 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)

17. 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!

18. 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
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19. Word Walls - more than just displaying
words

20. Word Walls of Synonyms

21. Symbolic Representation

22. 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.

23. Japanese Orthography

24. 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.

25. 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

26. 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)

27. 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).

28. 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.
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29. 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
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30. 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.

31. Language Exploration Example
Language that the team explored: English
French
1) 26 letters (not including 5 accents and 1) 26 letters represent 40-52 phonemes
2 ligatures) represent approx. 40
phonemes.
2) 7 vowel letters (with 5 diacritical 2) 5 vowel letters and 15 vowel
marks) and 17 vowel sounds sounds
3) Pronunciation is mostly based on
spelling, but the sounds from those 3) Sometimes the pronunciation varies
spellings are often different than with the same spelling (read)
English
4) Letters may not be pronounced at the 4) Some letters do not have direct relation
end of words, depending on the to the sounds in the word (height)
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 5) 19 consonant phonemes are spelled
more than one way (s and c, for using more than one letter (enough)
example). Because so many letters can
be silent, there are many opportunities
for homonyms.

32. 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.

33. 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.
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34. 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”)
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35. 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

36. 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.