Spelling Sounds and Patterns

Learn how English was born from the tribes from northern Europe — the  Anglo-Saxons and Vikings. Understand how these languages combined to create English and live on in spellings, letter patterns, and place names.

Learn how Anglo-Saxon phonetic spelling changed under the Norman French, and how we still have these letter patterns and spellings.

Learn how spelling became standardized but not phonetically, how the printers and academics changed spelling, and how the Great Vowel Shift changed pronunciation but not spelling.

A quick introduction to the 20 vowel sounds and their major letter patterns.

Learn the six short vowel sounds and one unstressed “schwa” sound.

Compare and contrast words with the short vowel sounds.

A brief look at the 13 long vowel sounds and their major patterns.

Compare and contrast the 5 long vowel sounds that say their alphabet name.

This is a quick look at the five letter -a- sounds and their letter patterns.

Learn the letter patterns and rules that make the short -a- vowel sound.

Revise the short -a- sound by contrasting it with other short vowel sounds.

Paper and pen at the ready!  There are 7 sentences. Write the sentence then I'll say, "Pause the player now and check your spelling."  Enjoy, and remember, mistakes are good if you learn from them.

Learn how one little letter can change the meaning and pronunciation of a word. Also learn the magic 'e', drop the 'e', and 1:1:1 doubling up rules that can help your spelling, reading and pronunciation.

Discover the twelve letter patterns for this "ay" sound  /eɪ/ /ā/

Paper and pen at the ready. Make mistakes and learn from them. Remember to check your spelling letter by letter - don't assume it's correct. Enjoy.

Learn all about these patterns and their position in words.

Learn all about these patterns and their position in words

Revise the five key patterns for this sound.

Revise these long -a- "ay" sound words and learn their homophone partners.

Pen and paper at the ready. Revise the "ay" sound patterns: a-e (magic 'e'), -ay, -ai-, -ey, -ei- and -ea-.

Learn the -au-, -aw-,  -war- and -qua- patterns for this sound, and why we have the "or sound in the -war- and -qua- patterns.

Learn some key "or" sound homophones that include lots of the -aw- pattern.

Learn the difference between the -ar and -are patterns and their sounds in words like car — care, scar — scare, star — stare.

Learn the patterns and words for this "ar" sound.

Learn the patterns and words for this "air" sound.

There are seven sentences. Paper and pen at the ready, and write what you hear then pause the player and check your spelling letter by letter.

Learn the nine sounds that this -au- pattern makes.

There are seven sentences. Paper and pen at the ready, and write what you hear then pause the player and check your spelling letter by letter.

This is a quick look at the seven letter -e- sounds and their letter patterns.

Learn the two major patterns for this sound and the other minor patterns.

Learn some important short -e- homophones, so you don't get them confused.

Revise the short -e- sound by contrasting it with other short vowel sounds.

Learn some important long -e- homophones, so you don't get them confused.

Learn some key words that change their long -e- sound to a short -e- when adding suffixes.

Learn the patterns that go with this "er"/"ur" sound.

Learn the 8 sounds of the -ea- letter pattern

-ea- spelling test. Have you got your pen and paper at the ready?

There are 8 sounds for the -ie- and -ei- patterns. In lesson 1, you'll learn the patterns for the long "e" sound.

In this second lesson on the -ie- and -ei- patterns and sounds, we're looking at the other 7 sounds.

Learn the three key sounds for letter -i-

Learn the major and minor letters and patterns for this sound.

Revise the short -i- sound by contrasting it with other short vowel sounds.

Learn how one little letter can change the meaning and pronunciation of a word. Also learn the magic 'e', drop the 'e', and 1:1:1 doubling up rules that can help your spelling, reading and pronunciation.

Learn the key letters and patterns, and silent letters for this long -i- sound.

Learn some key words that change their vowel sound when adding suffixes.

Learn some important -ir- words and numbers with the "er"/"ur" sound.

The letter -i- can make a long "ee" sound in some words and patterns.

A brief look at the 8 major sounds for the letter -o- and their key letter patterns.

Learn the common patterns for this sound, and why we have the unusual wa- and qua- patterns.

Revise the short -o- by contrasting it with other short vowel sounds.

Learn how the magic 'e' can change the sound and meaning when added to short vowel words; and also learn the drop the 'e' and 1:1:1 doubling up rules to help you spell, read and pronounce these words.

Learn the key patterns for this sound.

Learn the common homophones for this word.

Learn some common vowel shift words. Some words change their long vowel sound into a short sound when adding suffixes and are called vowel shift words.

Some short vowel sound words  become long vowel sound words with a different meaning when one letter is added or changed.

Learn the four sounds for the  -oo- letter pattern.

Learn the common patterns and words ending with the "oo" sound /uː/ /ü/

You'll learn the two sounds for the short -o- "uh" sound (/ʌ/ /ə/ and /ʊ/ /u̇/), and the historical reasons why we have these sounds with words such as: brother, mother, done, Monday, come, love, woman, touch, cousin.

Learn some common words and numbers with the "or sound.

Learn these tricky homophones words for the "or" sound.

Learn the pattern rules and sound for these common letter patterns.

Learn the 10 common sounds for this -ou- pattern.

Learn the major and minor sounds and common words for this -ow- pattern.

Pen and paper at the ready to test your spelling. Don't worry about mistakes - learn from them.

Learn the two major sounds for this -oa- pattern.

Pen and paper at the ready.  Test your spelling and remember to enjoy it, don't worry about mistakes - learn from them, and keep working on your spelling.

A brief introduction to the -u- sounds and major patterns.

This is the first of the short -u- sound /ʌ/ /ə/.

This is the second short -u- sound with some important words like put, push, full, could, would, should.

Revise the two short -u- sounds and the other short vowel sounds in this quick vowel contrast lesson.

Learn the two long -u- sounds ("oo" and "yoo") and their patterns.

Revise the short and long -u- sounds and how the magic 'e' at the end of words makes a long sound.

Learn the -ur- patterns for this "er"/"ur" sound.

Learn the four -ui- sounds and their common words.