If you find yourself telling your students that English is crazy, and they just have to memorize the spelling of words, then this session is for you. Learn why there is a “g” in sign and how morphology, etymology, and phonology all work together to make perfect sense of words like “two” or “their” and so many more! This presentation will set you on a journey of understanding the English writing system from a linguist's point of view. In addition, the presenters will demonstrate how to use web resources to investigate the most common sight words and provide instructions to facilitate the analysis.
Participants will be able to: describe the underpinnings of English orthography as representative of more than just phonology; explain the importance of using graphemes in teaching; use word sums and matrices to help students see the underlying structure of a word; investigate the etymology of a word in order to explain and teach its current spelling; and explain why most “sight words” are not really sight words at all.
