It all started with a great question from Ace Detective Mubarak
Why is there an at the end of the word ? 2
Slide 4
As an Ace Word Detective with credentials in Real Spelling,
Mubarak knew it must be there for a reason! HmmWhat job is that
doing? 3
Slide 5
He considered some of the purposes of single, silent, To show
that the vowel before it is long? To prevent a word from ending in
? 4
Slide 6
Knowing that there must be a reason he approached Ms Fiona
Thats a great question Mubarak! And guess what? She didnt know the
answer! 5
Slide 7
She went to some fellow word detectives And together they
puzzled over Mubaraks great question. 6
Slide 8
They had learned that when investigating any word it is useful
to ask 4 questions. 1.What does the word mean? 2.How is it built?
3.What other related words can you think of? 4.What are the sounds
that matter? 7
Slide 9
Here are the answers they came to 1.What does the word mean? To
move towards. 8
Slide 10
2. How is it built? They couldnt identify any prefixes or
suffixes so therefore they had to conclude is a base word. 9
Slide 11
3.What other related words can you think of?, and Origin is Old
English and it was originally spelt past tense of is They wondered
Is there a link to, ? was originally spelt Could the spelling have
been developed to avoid confusion with ? Is there a homophone for ?
Yes - meaning together with like kitchen-cum-dining room. 10
Slide 12
4.What are the sounds that matter? The phonemes in are: / k ///
/ m / The graphemes are: This made sense becausebut 11
Slide 13
We had reached the limit of our understanding. It was time to
call in the reinforcements We contacted Real Spellers worldwide via
the Real Spellers Forum 12
Slide 14
Heres what they told us The reason for the use of : 1.to avoid
confusion with 2.because in old script it was hard to differentiate
the letters and It would have looked like this Since and have a job
share arrangement it made sense to spell the word 13
Slide 15
And now the answer to Mubaraks original question The reasons
for the addition of the : 1.To avoid confusion with a new English
prefix - as in,. 2.To show a connection to the word - which is the
past tense of 14
Slide 16
As Real Spellers well know - letters have several functions.
Only one of which is to represent sounds or phonemes. One job that
letters can do is to show links of meaning between words. Do you
know any other examples? 15
Slide 17
Letters showing connections of meaning. Words that have
connections of meaning also have connections of spelling. 16 TwoTwo
twenty, twelve, twin TalkTalktale, told Peoplepopulation
Slide 18
Thanks to Mubarak Real Spellers worldwide are now talking about
the great work that is going on at RVIS! Fiona this is so wonderful
I have learned so much just by following their hard work. Learning
from a Grade 2 question I have posted her email to me at this link
on Real Spellers so that I can share the brilliance of what is
going on at her school The question posed by your grade 2 student
Is a wonderful inspiration as I prepare for work this morning.
Please tell him that a teacher in Tennessee, USA has been
scratching his head over it for hours. 17