To finish up the ‘blockers’ rules, we teach students about the double ff, ll, ss rule (sometimes referred to as the ‘Floss Rule’).  Rather than adding a different consonant to block the vowel, we double the end consonant, and, strangely, for only the letters ‘l’, ‘f’, and ‘s’.   Any word that has a short vowel sound (vowel saying it’s sound) and ends with one of these letters will need that letter to be doubled for the same reason as all of our other blocker rules; this ‘protects’ the vowel from changing when a tense is changed or endings are added to the word.

“The last blocker rule we will learn is somewhat different from the others.  We will now talk about doubling the final consonant in words.  The funny thing is that we don’t do this consistently with all consonants.  The only ones that it works for consistently are L, F and S.  Therefore, we will call this the double ll, double ff, double ss rule.  Can you think of any words that use these double consonants at the end?”

Student: “Bill, stuff and grass.”

Tutor: “Right!  Many common words use these endings, but we don’t say the sound twice, do we?  So, we need to have some way of predicting when to double.  Now the other rules we’ve learned had 2 parts, but since there are 3 consonants that we double, there will be 3 parts to this rule.”

Student: “I am intrigued beyond belief, please tell me more.”

Tutor: “Now, whenever we have a vowel saying its sound, and a (/l/), a (/f/) or a (/s/) come right after the vowel AND that is the last sound in the word, we double the L, F, or S.  Why do you think we do that?”

Student: “In case we add an ending like –ed?”

Tutor: “You’re right!  Just as with –tch and –ck, we are doubling here to protect the vowel just in case we add an ending like –ed later on.  That ending doesn’t have to be there though, because we use the double consonant regardless.  Now let’s look at some words that use ll/ff/ss.”

 

After the student has had some practice with the ‘-dge’ rule, we introduce a very similar rule. This is the ‘-tch’ rule, also called the “copycat rule.”

Tutor: “The next blocker rule we are going to learn is very much like the ‘-dge’ rule you just learned. Today we are going to learn about spelling words that end with the sound /ch/. What letters are you thinking of for that sound?”

Student: “C-H.”

Tutor: “Great. Just like the /j/ sound at the end of a word, the /ch/ also needs a blocker. And just as we had the ‘d’ as the blocker for the ‘dge’ rule, we use the ‘t’ as the blocker for the ‘tch’ rule.  When we have a vowel saying its sound followed by the /ch/, we always use ‘tch.’  But, what are we blocking? (Tutor spells fetch as F-E-C-H)  Wouldn’t fetch still say the same thing without the T?”

Student: “Yes it would.  I’m not sure why we are adding an extra letter.  It seems like we don’t need it.”

Tutor: “This one is a little tricky.  At first it looks like the ‘t’ is unnecessary.  But check out what happens if I wanted to say the dog “fetched” (F-E-C-H-E-D) the ball.  Could that final ‘e’ jump over the ‘ch’?”

Student: “I guess if it can jump over ‘th,’ it can also jump over ‘ch.’”

Tutor: “It can!  So we use ‘tch’ just in case we add an ending like ‘-ed’ later on.  The important thing to remember is that the ‘-ed’ doesn’t even have to be there.  We use the blocker regardless.  Also, unlike the ‘dge’ rule which works very consistently, there are a few exceptions to the ‘tch’ rule.  There are four common words that don’t follow the rule.  They are SUCH, MUCH, RICH and WHICH.  In each word we have a vowel saying its sound and the /ch/ sound comes right after, but none of them end with ‘-tch.’  We will need to commit these four words to memory.”

When you think of the letter ‘q’, what sound do you think of this letter making?  Are you able to think of a word that doesn’t have a ‘u’ directly following the ‘q’? Pretty difficult, huh? Most words that exist in English with a ‘q’ and no ‘u’ are derived from Semitic languages and are considered loanwords (a word adopted from one language and incorporated into another language without translation – for example, “Iraq”, “Qur’an”, and “Qatar”). The digraph (a digraph is a combination of two letters that create one sound) ‘qu’ has a lot of history to it, and to fully understand why so many words need a ‘u’ following the ‘q’ in the English language, one has to understand the origins of letter ‘q’ and the original functions associated with this letter.

It is no secret that the English language has been influenced by a variety of other languages. While English is not a Romance language like French or Spanish (which are heavily influenced by Latin), English takes a lot of different concepts from those two in addition to German, Latin, and many more.  The letter ‘q’ in particular is derived from Ancient Greece, specifically the Greek letter Koppa -pictured in a few forms below – and as you can see, ‘Q/q’ resembles the same shape as Koppa.

 

The Ancient Greeks used Koppa to represent the sounds /k/ and /g/, but only when those sounds were followed by a round vowel sound (a sound that, when said, creates a roundness in the lips; ex. /oe/ in “note”, or /oo/ in “fool”).  There was another letter to represent the same /k/ and /g/ sounds with other sound pairings in Ancient Greece: the letter ‘c’.  As those sounds became represented more and more frequently with the letter ‘c’, the letter ‘q’ became dependent on being followed by the letter ‘u’ to express any sound at all.

The other major influence of ‘qu’ in the English language has to do with the Norman invasion of England in 1066.  Once the Frenchmen invaded England and took control, they began changing the spelling of words within English that were spelled with ‘cw’ to ‘qu’.  For example, the word ‘queen’ was originally spelled as ‘cwen’ in old English.  There are also words that we use in English that are derived directly from the French language and are expressed with the addition of ‘e’ to ‘qu’ which reverts this digraph back to the original sound for the letter ‘q’: /k/.  This spelling only comes at the ends of words in English. Consider the words: ‘unique’, ‘bisque’, and ‘antique’.

Now that we’ve had a brief history lesson on the origins of the ‘qu’ diagraph, let’s talk about how we can break down this combination to better understand the functions and uses of ‘qu’ within the English language. Standing alone, the letter ‘q’ makes a /k/ sound.  Pair that with the letter ‘u’ (/u/), and the sound that is created is /kw/, hence why we refer to this ‘rule’ as a ‘borrower’.  Consider the words: ‘queen’, ‘quiz’, and ‘equal’; whether at the beginning or in the middle of the word, the ‘qu’ sound does not change.  Then, we talk about how, when ‘qu’ falls at the end of a word, the letter ‘e’ is required so that the sound then becomes /k/.

By breaking down the understanding of the letter ‘q’ with the addition of ‘u’ and then ‘e’, students are better able to decode unknown words with this tricky digraph. Phonics is essentially the system behind how letters function on their own and with other letters, and is an invaluable tool for students who struggle due to Dyslexia. Below is an example dialogue for introducing this concept.

Tutor: “Q is an interesting letter in our language.  It happens to be the only letter that cannot exist on its own.  Do you know what letter always follows Q?”

Student: “U”

Tutor: “Correct!  Q must always be followed by U.  Just like with borrowers X and Y, Qu borrows different sounds depending on where it is located in the word. So, what are the 3 places Qu could be found in a word?”

Student: “Beginning, middle or end.”

Tutor: “Are you a mind reader?  Right again!  Can you think of any words that begin with Qu?”

Student: “Quiz, queen, and quarrel.”

Tutor: “Perfect!  Now, let’s think about what we hear at the beginning of each of those words.  What sounds was Qu borrowing in each?”

Student: “KW”

Tutor:  “You got it!  Anytime Qu is at the beginning of a word, it will say /KW/.”

The tutor will repeat this process for the middle and end, being very careful to emphasize that no words end with –qu, so we have to use –que instead. Also, note that the ‘e’ does not jump over a vowel to make it say its name.

Tutor: “Now let’s look at some nonsense words and real words that use Qu.”

 

After a student has learned Borrower C, we introduce Borrower G. The visual aid for this rule is also a train track. During the introduction, the tutor should point out the similarities and differences between the diagrams for ‘C’ and ‘G’.

Tutor: Believe it or not, there is another borrower rule that is related to Borrower C.  It is Borrower G.

Student: Don’t we already have a sound for ‘G’?

Tutor: You’re right, we do. ‘G’ is unlike the other borrowers because it DOES have a sound of its own – /g/. But, ‘G’ is greedy.  Not only does ‘G’ like to say his own sound, he also likes to take the sound of another letter.  Do you know what other sound ‘G’ can make?

Student: /j/?

Tutor: That’s right! Just like in giraffe or page.  So our job is to predict when ‘G’ will make its own sound, or when it could borrow the sound of ‘J’ instead.  To do this, we need another train!

Tutor: Let’s take a look at the Borrower C picture so you can see how these two trains are the same and the important ways they’re different. Just like the ‘C’-train, it is the same three magic letters that make ‘G’ change – ‘I’ ‘E’ and ‘Y.’ However, what difference do you see when the ‘G’-train comes to the sign post?

Student: It looks like the train has a choice.

Tutor: Exactly! Because ‘G’ has a sound of its own, it always has a choice of keeping it.  The problem is that there is no way to predict whether the ‘G’ will say /g/ or /j/.  It is up to us to decide which way is correct.  Take for instance the word gem.  There are actually two ways of saying this word.  If I make the ‘G’ say /g/, it would sound almost like saying gum: gem.  Does that sound like a word to you?

Student: No way!

Tutor: Right. So we would say in this case that the ‘G’ is going to say /j/ instead: jem.  Now that is a word I know!  Any time ‘G’ has an ‘I,’ ‘E,’ or ‘Y’ behind it the ‘G’ has a CHOICE of whether it says /g/ or /j/ and it always up to the reader to decide which way is correct.

Student: I think I get it!

Tutor: But, there is one time we take ‘G’s choice away. When we have the letters ‘–ge’ at the END of a word, we force the ‘G’ to say /j/.  Why do you think that is?

Student: Hmmm. I don’t know.

Tutor: Believe it or not, if I went through the entire dictionary, I wouldn’t be able to find one word that ends with the letter ‘J.’  We just don’t use ‘J’s at the end of a word.  So, if I can’t use the letter ‘J’ at the end, what is the only other way to spell that sound?

Student: ‘-ge.’

Tutor:  Yes!  And that is why ‘–ge’ at the end can’t have a choice.  There just isn’t any other way to spell that sound at the end of a word.  Now let’s look at some nonsense words and real words that use BorrowerG.

There are several letters used in English that have no consistent sound association, which we call ‘Borrowers.’ This helps to convey the idea that they are ‘borrowing’ sounds from other letters.

The first of these is the infamous ‘Y.’ The ‘Y’ makes different sounds depending on where it is in a word. Contrary to popular opinion, the ‘Y’ does not say “yuh” (/ee-uh/) all the time. Like many superheroes, the ‘Y’ has an elaborate origin story dating back to Greek to Latin, and then Old English to our modern usage. Because of this, it wears many hats.

 

 

The ‘Y’ can reside in the beginning, middle, or end of a word. In the beginning of a word, the ‘Y’ is functioning as a consonant making the lightly voiced /ee/ sound, like in ‘yes’ or ‘yams’. This sound can be found in the German name Johann. Because English already had a hard ‘J’ sound (/jay/ like in John) represented by the letter j, another letter needed to be introduced for this sound. Since the ‘y’ was available on typeset, do to its function as a vowel in the middle and end of words, voila!

Its function as a vowel can be traced back to Greek and Latin. The letter Y in Spanish (as descended form Latin) is ‘I griega,” which translates to ‘Greek I’ or the Greek letter upsilon. From there its use spread from Greek to Latin an on.

In the middle of words, the ‘Y’ functions basically as the vowel ‘i’ as in “myth” or “system.” However, just like the letter ‘i’ it must follow the ‘final e’ long vowel rule as in words such as “type” and “byte.”

At the ends of words, the ‘Y’ plays double duty. If ‘Y’ is functioning as the only vowel at the end of a one syllable word, it will make the /ie/ sound, as in “sky” or “fly.” However, if ‘Y’ ends a multi-syllable word (if there is another vowel), then the ‘Y’ makes the /ee/ long vowel sound, such as in “happy” or “identity.” An easy way to visually represent this concept to a student is demonstrated below.

Before introducing borrower Y, it is helpful to discuss the concept of “borrowing” with the student.  This helps the student understand that Y is taking the sound of other letters because it doesn’t have a sound of its own.

Tutor: “You may have noticed that when we talked about the vowels we left a letter out.  That letter is Y.  You may remember that your teacher said the vowels were A, E, I, O, U and SOMETIMES Y.  The truth is that Y doesn’t have a sound of its own and has to use the sounds of other letters instead.  The way we figure out what sound Y will make is by looking at where it is in the word.  What are the three places Y could be at in a word?”

Student: “Beginning, middle and end.”

Tutor: “You’re right!  Now, can you think of any words that begin with ‘y’?”

Student: “Yell, yowl and Y am I here?”

Tutor: “Let’s use the first two.  Now, what sound to you hear the Y making in the beginning of “yell” or “yowl?”

Student: “/ee/”

Tutor: “You’re right.  That’s because Y says ‘ee’ at the beginning of words.”

The tutor will now repeat this process for Y at the middle and ends of words.  Using example words will assist the student in discovering the sound that Y borrows in each instance.

Tutor: “Now let’s look at some nonsense words and real words that use borrower Y.”