Not long ago, a question about the ‘u’ in ‘build came up in a Science of Reading facebook group.  It’s the kind of question I like, so I did some research.  Etymological sources like Etymonline and Chambers Dictionary of Etymology agree that there isn’t a specific explanation as to why that ‘u’ is there.  In the Chambers Dictionary there is a suggestion that perhaps the present spelling is a combination of two earlier versions – bulden and bilden. The Oxford English Dictionary lists one of the Middle English spellings for this word as builde.  There is also an indication that by the 1650’s the present spelling was being consistently used.  The entry gives a thorough description of how the pronunciation of this word developed.  If you have a subscription to the OED, take a look.  Even though the combination of information from the three resources makes sense to me, I still refer to this train of thought as a theory or hypothesis.  It is not proven.  Would I share this information with my students?  Absolutely.  Would I read part or all of the entries for ‘build’ at Etymonline, Chambers Dictionary, and the OED?  Absolutely.  But why?

Many teachers will argue that the etymology is too much for their students to handle.  They don’t need to know it in order to spell a word.  I’ve heard teachers call this kind of information “cognitive overload.”  But you know what IS cognitive overload?  Being asked to remember a letter string that doesn’t make sense to you – for which this is no connection to anything.  Once we can talk about the story of the spelling of ‘build,’ even if what we end up with are theories and hypotheses, it is the beginning of making that spelling memorable.

I’ve been thinking about graphemes a lot recently.  Specifically, I’ve been thinking about the graphemes that do not represent pronunciation – like that <u> in build, the <e> in bridge, the <g> in sign, the <l> in could.  They are included in a word’s spelling to signal something else.  The reason I’ve become thoughtful about these unpronounced graphemes is I’ve noticed a lot inconsistency in the way different sources and teaching materials label and categorize these graphemes.  Because there is a variety of descriptions and explanations, educators and tutors aren’t consistent in the way they present information about graphemes to students.  I’m wondering if, for the sake of teaching children what is consistent about English spelling, we might come together to explore this topic and consider the facts.

What is a grapheme, anyway?

Let’s begin with a definition of ‘grapheme.’  Several linguistic sources define a grapheme as “the smallest meaningful contrastive unit in a writing system”  or “the smallest functional unit of a writing system.”   As I continued to look for how other people define a grapheme, I found the following, written by various groups that specifically support teachers.

“A grapheme is a written symbol that represents a sound (phoneme).”
“Graphemes give us the visual component of a sound.”
“The individual letters or groups of letters that represent the individual speech sounds are called graphemes.”

Notice how one group (linguists) does not specifically define a grapheme as representing sound (at least not as part of its definition) and groups serving teachers do.  I found this quite interesting.  I wondered what Richard Venezky had to say in his book The American Way of Spelling.

“To map spelling into sound, graphemic words must be segmented into their basic graphemic units.  This requires schemes for handling letters like the final <e> in rove and the <b> in debt.  Is the <e> in rove connected to <o>, forming the discontinuous unit <o…e>, or is it part of the unit <ve>, or is it a unit by itself?  Similarly, how is the <b> in debt to be handled — as part of the unit <eb>, or as part of <bt>, or as a separate unit?  Are the silent <e> in rove and the silent <b> in debt equivalent?  The solutions to these problems should be not only consistent with the way similar letters are handled, but also general enough to handle new cases that may arise. They cannot be settled satisfactorily by simply labeling all unpronounced letters as silent.  Consider the so-called “silent” <b>’s in subtle and bomb.  We could say that the <b>’s in these two words are silent, and let the matter rest.  But by doing so, we would lose an important difference between these two cases.  The form subtle occurs only with the <b> corresponding to zero, but <b> in bombard and bombardier corresponds to /b/.  It is not sufficient, therefore, to say that the second <b> in bomb is silent; more exactly, it is silent before word junctures and before certain suffixes (compare bombing, bombs, bombed), and otherwise pronounced /b/.  This is one of the forms of orthographic patterning that almost all traditional treatments of spelling overlook. ”

There’s a lot there to consider, isn’t there?  Let’s begin with what he said about the <e> in ‘rove.’  “Is the <e> in rove connected to <o>, forming the discontinuous unit <o…e>, or is it part of the unit <ve>, or is it a unit by itself?”  When people refer to the discontinuous unit <o…e> or the unit <ve>, they are referring to how that <e> is functioning in the word, aren’t they?  We know which phoneme is being represented by the grapheme <o> because of the <e>, right?  Without that <e>, the <o> would represent a different phoneme.  The unit <ve> reminds us that no complete English word ends with a <v>.  Notice the language that Venezky uses to describes these two functions of <e> in this word (rove).  He does not call the discontinuous unit <o…e> a split digraph.  He does not call the unit <ve> a digraph.  But so many of the teaching resources and programs out there do.

If the <ve> in ‘rove’ is a digraph, then by definition those two letters must be representing the phoneme /v/.  If the <o…e> is a digraph, then those two letters must be representing the phoneme /oʊ/.   Is that the case?   Is a <ve> digraph functioning the same as a <th>, <sh>, <ch>, <ea> or <ee> digraph?

What if, instead of teaching children that <o…e>, <e…e>, <a…e>, <i…e>, and <u…e> are split digraphs, we taught them that the single, final, non-syllabic <e> in ‘rove’ is a grapheme that is not representing pronunciation.  It functions differently.  In the word ‘rove’ it signals the pronunciation of another letter.  It signals that the <o> will have a long pronunciation /oʊ/.  Taking it a step further, what if, instead of teaching that <ve> is a digraph, we taught students that the single, final, non-syllabic <e> is not representing pronunciation. It functions differently.  In the word ‘rove’, besides signaling the long pronunciation of the <o>, it is also preventing this word from ending in a <v>.

The consistent part in both of those scenarios is that the grapheme <e> is single, final, and non-syllabic.  It is NOT there to represent pronunciation.  It MUST be there for another reason.  Using the word ‘rove,’ we were able to illustrate two of the possible ways that final <e> can function.  Wouldn’t it be fun for your students to discover more?  Maybe you could set up an investigation in which you list the words bike, house, give, blue, bathe, dance, and large. Ask the students to consider the word with and without the <e> before they hypothesize its function!

What about other letters that are often referred to as ‘silent’?

I take you back to the excerpt from Venezky.

“…how is the <b> in debt to be handled — as part of the unit <eb>, or as part of <bt>, or as a separate unit?  Are the silent <e> in rove and the silent <b> in debt equivalent?”

So back to the question that was asked in the Science of Reading group.  I responded by sharing a blog post in which I had previously investigated ‘build’ (along with 31 other words that supposedly had “silent letters”).  It is called “Guess What?  They’re ALL Silent Letters!”  A few people in the thread linked Etymonline in their comment and suggested there would be an answer there although they didn’t identify what that answer would be. Beyond that, the comments from others highlighted just how inconsistent the understanding is when looking at unpronounced graphemes in words like ‘build.’  Read some of those comments.

“The <bu> grapheme appears in 3 words representing the /b/ sound: build, buoy and buy!”

“The words “buy” and “buoy” also have a “u” that just seems to be there to support the “b”.

“Bu makes the /b/ sound.”

The first commenter considers <bu> to be a digraph, meaning it is the combination of ‘b’ and ‘u’ that create the phoneme /b/.  But when I announce those three words, one stands out as different from the others – ‘buoy.’  The ‘u’ is not joining with the ‘b’ here.  It is representing its own pronunciation.  Compare ‘buoy’ to ‘boy.’  I think you will agree that the ‘u’ in ‘buoy’ has a different function that the ‘u’ in ‘buy’ or ‘build.’  It represents pronunciation where the ‘u’ in the other two words does not.  The site ToPhonetics represents ‘boy’ as /’bɔɪ/ in both American and British pronunciations and ‘buoy’ as /ˈbui/.  Even if you are not familiar with IPA, you can see that these two words have different IPA symbols, meaning they have different pronunciations.  And if <bu> is a digraph, wouldn’t it be consistently a digraph?  There are many words in which /b/ is simply represented by <b>.

The second commenter doesn’t call the ‘bu’ a digraph.  This person, instead, says that ‘u’ supports the ‘b’ in ‘buy’ and ‘buoy.’  What is meant by “supports the ‘b’?”  Not sure.  But what I am sure of is that both of these commenters realize that the ‘u’ is not representing pronunciation on its own.  They are just not sure how to identify what it is doing instead.  Why is it there?  Here’s another comment.

“In “guild” and “guy,” it makes sense. The u blocks the i and y so they can’t make g say /j/. Not sure if that carries over to “build” and “buy,” but I would love to know!”

This commenter has an understanding that when we see a ‘g’ followed by a ‘u’, the ‘g’ is /g/ in that word.  Think of guard, gum, gulf, guess, guest, gust, gush, and lots of others.  If, like the commenter says, the “u blocks the i and y so they can’t make g say /j/,” then what’s happening in gum, gulf, gust, and gush?  The ‘u’ in those words is representing the /ʌ/ phoneme and is not blocking any vowels.  I’m not saying the ‘gu’ letter string doesn’t usually signal that the ‘g’ is pronounced as /g/.  I’m saying it probably doesn’t have anything to do with blocking a vowel.  Perhaps we can think of this situation like this.  When we see a <g> followed by <u>, we know to pronounce the <g> as /g/.  That holds true whether the <u> is representing a vowel phoneme in the word or whether its not representing pronunciation at all.

More comments…

“I don’t have an official answer to this but if you took out that u and it was bild I’d pronounce that similarly to wild and mild. But guild and build rhyme so the u must help break that -ild ending pattern…?”

“Perhaps it keeps the i short so it isn’t a “wild” “child” word.”

Both of these comments focus on a comparison to wild, mild, and child.  Interesting.

Maybe it would be best to redefine a grapheme as “the smallest functioning part of the writing system that may or may not represent pronunciation.”  Let’s take another look at the words of Richard Venezky.

“The solutions to these problems should be not only consistent with the way similar letters are handled, but also general enough to handle new cases that may arise. They cannot be settled satisfactorily by simply labeling all unpronounced letters as silent.  Consider the so-called “silent” <b>’s in subtle and bomb.  We could say that the <b>’s in these two words are silent, and let the matter rest.  But by doing so, we would lose an important difference between these two cases.  The form subtle occurs only with the <b> corresponding to zero, but <b> in bombard and bombardier corresponds to /b/.  It is not sufficient, therefore, to say that the second <b> in bomb is silent; more exactly, it is silent before word junctures and before certain suffixes (compare bombing, bombs, bombed), and otherwise pronounced /b/.  This is one of the forms of orthographic patterning that almost all traditional treatments of spelling overlook. ”

For teachers who don’t know the particular reason that a grapheme isn’t representing a phoneme, it seems easy to lump it in with all of the other graphemes that also don’t represent a phoneme and call it a silent letter.  But how enlightening is that for any of us.  Venezky illustrates with the example of ‘bomb’ and ‘debt’.  They each have an unpronounced <b>.  But as he goes on to say, they are unpronounced for different reasons.  Understanding those reasons can mean the difference between remembering the spelling of those words and going back to the default spelling method most children have which is “sound it out.”  In this case, “sound it out” will only lead to misspelled words.

Moving forward.

If you can get a copy of Venezky’s book The American Way of Spelling, I recommend it.  I refer to it often and reread sections when I need to.  It has been so helpful in developing my understanding of words and their spellings.

Some of these unpronounced graphemes make for pretty cool investigations though.  Think about the reasons for the single, final, non-syllabic <e>.  Collect a group of words with final unpronounced <e>’s as I mentioned earlier.  Have your students group them according to the function of that final <e>.  Maybe it will require collecting more words.  Maybe it will require considering the word without the <e> and if that would affect the word’s pronunciation.  Here’s a video my students made after doing such an investigation.  The video mentions six different reasons for that <e> but there are more!

As you notice one of these unpronounced graphemes in a word, see what else you can find out.  Resist the urge to pair it with the letter before or after it and labeling it a digraph without a solid reason.  As an example, I looked at Etymonline to see what information I could find about the <l> in ‘talk’.  I have heard it is related to ‘tale’ and that is the reason for the ‘l’, but I wanted to see if there was more to know.

From what I read here, the <l> has always been part of this word’s spelling.  I don’t see any earlier versions of the spelling without the<l>.  As I have heard before, it is “ultimately from the same source as tale.” To talk is how we share a tale!  What comes next in this entry is gold!  Check out the relationship between tale-talk, hear-hark, steal-stalk, and smile-smirk!  The second spelling formed with the “rare English formative -k.”  I wondered if I would find the same information in the OED (Oxford English Dictionary).  In that reference I learned that “it is notable that talk v. and stalk v.1 show a strong formal similarity to walk v. beyond simply the ‑k‑ element, and it is possible that analogy with walk v. has prompted the introduction of this element in either or both of these verbs.  How about that!  So perhaps ‘talk’ was the reason for using the “rare English formative -k” in the spelling of ‘talk’ and ‘stalk’.  Now we have a story about ‘talk’ that not only connects it to tale but also to walk, stalk, hear/hark, smile/smirk.

My classroom became known for our word investigations.  One time another classroom asked us about the word ‘know’ and why it was spelled with a <k>.  After thanking them for such a great question, I had my students collect a list of words (using Word Searcher) that started with the spelling <kn>.  Once we wrote our list on the board, I asked students to each choose one of the words and to look at it at Etymonline.  They were to find out what the language of origin was and how it was spelled in that language.  (I knew ahead of time that the words would be from Old English and that the information would be up front in the entry.)  Next the students wrote the original spelling next to the word on the board.  It didn’t take long before we realized that in Old English these words were spelled with <cn> and not <kn>.  We found out later that at that time the <cn> was pronounced as /kn/.

Here’s the entry for <kn> at Etymonline.

Now we understood that in Old and Middle English, both the <c> and <n> were fully voiced.  It was between 1650 and 1750 that the /k/ weakened and faded in the pronunciation of this word.  Today we only pronounce the <n>.  The <kn> has stayed part of the spelling to remind us of this word’s history.  Once my students understood the story they were ready to visit the classroom where the question originated and share their understanding!

There are many of these unpronounced graphemes and they reside in words for different reasons.  I encourage you to explore with your students.  Find out what purpose that grapheme serves and acknowledge that not all graphemes represent phonemes!  I would love to hear where your investigations take you!

For many years, my 5th grade students were buddies with a class of 4K students.  Every Friday the two groups spent 30 minutes either playing games, reading books, or making some kind of craft.  If it was a crafting day,  I would give the older students the directions before we left our room.  In that way they knew what the final product should look like and could work with the kindergartner without much adult help.  It seemed like a good plan.  Invariably though, the 5th grader would get caught up in the making of the craft and little by little the 4K student was less and less involved.

This wasn’t done with intention.  I had talked to the 5th graders and explained the purpose of our visits.  Sure, they were making friends, but of equal importance, the younger students were practicing fine motor skills as they were writing their names, cutting with a scissors, and squeezing out glue drops.  Yet, in the moment, the older student was innocently sharing the special things they could draw or a cool way to write their names – all in an effort to make the project look better.

The 4K teacher and I circulated during this time and pointed out the things that the 4K student should be doing independently.  We encouraged the 5th grader to offer guidance and to be the cheerleader on the side.  To make a point, I asked my students whether they learned to ride a bike by watching someone else or by riding the bike themselves.  Of course there are certain aspects to be learned by watching, but the balancing and controlling of the movement must be learned while actually riding the bike!  And in the same way, the only way the 4K students would improve with the skills involved is if they did them themselves.

When I think back on this experience, I can’t help but draw a parallel to my early incorporation of SWI.  During my first year, I honestly didn’t know the answers to the questions my students and I were coming up with.  Because of that, the atmosphere in the room was one of constant delight.  We reveled in the moments of discovery that presented themselves daily.  Truthfully, not having to be able to answer every question was freeing for me as the teacher.   I’ve known plenty of teachers who think part of their job is to anticipate every question that will be asked and have an answer ready.  But, really, when we do that, we put limits on what can be asked.  We aren’t really teaching the students to learn what they can, but to learn within the limits of our understanding.

At the start of the second year, my knowledge level had increased, and I was excited to be introducing SWI to a new group of students!  When students asked questions, I answered them, excited to be sharing an understanding I came to with the previous year’s students.  I was so enthused!  I couldn’t help myself.  But even as I was doing it, I began recognizing that in giving them “answers,”  I was robbing the students of the opportunity to see the understanding for themselves.  It was like the fifth graders working with the 4K students.  They were so excited to share what they knew how to do that they didn’t notice the 4K students weren’t practicing the skills they needed to practice!  Thank goodness I realized what I was doing and could step back as “answer-giver” and step forward as someone to guide them through answering their own questions.

At the end of each school year, I have asked students what they liked about studying our orthography.  The following student was part of that very first group in which I jumped into the SWI orbit!

What this student so clearly expressed has stayed with me through many years of teaching.  Like others, she could easily memorize what she was asked to memorize.  But just because a student can spell a word, it doesn’t mean they understand why its spelling makes sense.  Sure, students who are good at remembering things will remember what we ask them to remember, but just think of how many aren’t that good at it and will maybe remember it only temporarily if they remember it at all.   She was pleased because she was shown how to see for herself why a specific spelling made sense.  That was new for her.  In the past, she was handed a list of words to memorize and she did it.  But what did she really learn about the spelling of those words by memorizing them?

Structured Word Inquiry brings many skills into use.  In fact, when I first began incorporating this learning into my classroom, I realized right away that improved spelling was almost a byproduct of a scientific process for learning.  The routine established in the classroom balanced inquiry with explicit teaching and could be applied to teaching spelling, grammar, science, or any subject.  As a professional educator, I made decisions about when to jump in with explicit teaching so that the students could work as independently as possible as often as possible.

Let’s say I noticed in their writing samples that some were misunderstanding when to use <ch> and when to use <tch>.  I would gather those particular students and ask them to investigate those graphemes.  If I have more than three students needing this investigation, I might assign one group to compare <ch> and <tch> another to compare <k> and <ck>, and perhaps a third group comparing <ge> (when it is pronounced as it is in sage – /dʒ/) and <dge>.  In the end they would share their findings with the whole class and we would then notice some commonalities in their findings.

*A note for clarification.  I am not identifying <ge> as a digraph in this situation.  I am including the <e> because I am comparing words with /dʒ/ that are spelled either as <g> followed by an <e> or <dge>.

First I would show them how to use Word Searcher so they could easily collect words that have a <ch> (<k>, <ge>).  Once they had collected 15-20 words, I would ask them to notice where in the word that <ch> was.  Was it initial, medial, or final?

The next step is to ask them to collect a similar number of words that have a <tch> trigraph (<ck>, <dge>).  When they come back to me with the list, I ask them to notice where in the word the <tch> was.  Was it initial, medial, or final?

At this point, ask them what they are noticing.  If they need guidance, lead them to see that while <ch>, <k>, and <ge> might be found anywhere in a word, <tch>, <ck>, and <dge> are most often found in the final position of a base.  (If this is the first investigation for your students, they will need help noticing things.  Usually, teachers tell the students what to see and they aren’t practiced at seeing things like this for themselves.)

Now that they’ve noticed the placement flexibility of either <ch>, <k>, or <ge> and the usual placement of either <tch>, <ck>, or <dge> as final in the base, I ask the groups focused on each grapheme pair to compare words where either <ch> and <tch>, <k>, and <ck>, or <ge> and <dge> are final in a word.  That means they will need at least 20 words in which the first in their grapheme pair (<ch>) is final and 20 words in which the second grapheme in their pair (<tch>) is final.

When the students bring those lists to me, I’ll ask them to now notice whether the letter to the left of the targeted grapheme is a vowel or a consonant. If it is a vowel, is it just one vowel or are there two?  If it is a consonant, which one is it?  At this point, I may need to review the vowels with a student.  If I do, I have the student write them in their notebook so they can quickly refer to them.

I will ask once more what they are noticing.  If they are not sure what to say, I’ll ask guiding questions like, “Did you find consonants before <ch> or before <tch>? Is there one consonant you found more often than any other?  When you noticed vowels before the grapheme, was there one vowel or two?  Depending on the students, there are years when I had them make bar graphs showing the frequency of the various single vowels found before <tch> (or <ck> or <dge>).

The final step is to have them make their own list of observations and to present their findings to you or to their classmates.  In the following videos, you’ll notice that two students focused on the vowels before a final <tch>, two students focused on vowel digraphs before a final <ch>, and two students focused on consonants before a final <ch>.  They presented to each other and we followed up by recognizing what we now knew about words with final <tch> and <ch>.

By helping them set up investigations like these, they had the opportunity to notice the consistent pronunciation of the vowel digraphs and single vowel graphemes in the words they were collecting.  They were able to practice using terms like digraph, trigraph, and grapheme.  We talked about words in which the pronunciation of the vowel grapheme was unexpected (/ɑ/ in watch as opposed to /æ/ in batch) and made sure we talked about any unfamiliar words.  They had practice using Word Searcher and were now comfortable enough to use it independently in the future.  As is usual with an SWI investigation, students get practice at noticing things for themselves.  If I tell them what to see, they don’t get that practice.

Of course, there are many ways to set up such an investigation.  That’s where you, as a professional educator, use your expertise to suggest a framework that will work best for your students.  I urge you, though, not to underestimate what your students can handle.  Show them they CAN notice things once they have collected words similar in some way.  I found that by fifth grade, many of my students needed their sense of curiosity (when it comes to words) rekindled.

Be there to guide them to resources when they ask a question.  Turn the question back on them when you think they can figure it out on their own.  But then keep an eye on them so they don’t give up or become too discouraged.  Remember, you are helping them see themselves as capable of following a plan to deepen their understanding.  Handing students information that they are capable of finding for themselves may seem like a time saving thing in the moment, but think about what they are losing.  Many children struggle with expressing their thinking.  Others don’t have enough practice at researching on their own – they look at appropriate materials but don’t really understand how to extract what it is they are looking for.

Every time one group or another posts a list of tricky words, my interest is piqued.  What’s tricky about these words, I wonder?  But really?  I needn’t wonder.  Here’s a list of 21 (Tricky Words ) that I came across just the other day.  If you look at the words on this list, you’ll notice what I’ve noticed – these words are often misspelled because their spelling doesn’t match their pronunciation. And as usual, the word is getting the blame for that.  How many thousands of words have to end up on the ‘Tricky Words’ list before we start considering that there is more to why a word has a certain spelling than merely its pronunciation?  Let’s take a closer look at four of the twenty one words on this list.

When I looked at the specific words on this list, I wasn’t surprised to see ‘accommodate’ as the very first one.  I was surprised, however, to see what the author considered helpful information so we could better understand the spelling of this word.

This reminds me of the way vocabulary was introduced to me back in my school years.  I was given the accurate spelling of the word followed by the word represented in phonetically spelled syllables.  And even though the phonetically spelled syllables helped with pronunciation, in order to pass my vocabulary test I had to remember that the pronunciation spelling and the actual spelling of the word were not the same.  Lastly, there was a definition of the word.  The clear message here is that first we pronounce the word and then we learn its meaning.   When given a list of vocabulary words to know, matching the right word to the right definition was what was really tricky!  Ultimately, the task was to memorize the spelling of the word and which definition that went with it.  A totally rote memorization activity.  When I could, I made up silly rhymes or rhythms to help me remember those pairings.  Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t.

Yesterday I spent some time in a 5th grade classroom. I told them about finding ‘accommodate’ on a list of tricky words.  I began by discussing the meaning of accommodate.  If I was going to offer someone accommodations, I would first see what they needed and then try to fit those needs.  I used the example of a motel offering a family of eight a room with a single twin sized bed.  Would those accommodations be appropriate?  Would they fit the family’s needs?  No.  They would not be a good fit.  The family would need different accommodations.

I then asked a student to write their hypothesis for the spelling of ‘accommodate’ on the board.  I asked if anyone had a different spelling hypothesis and invited that person to add theirs to the list.  When I had several different spellings, we stopped to consider them.

All of the students said that they base the spelling on how the word is pronounced.  It is obvious that these students know several ways to spell /eɪ/.  Within the last week I had them look closer at the <igh> trigraph and its pronunciation when preceded by a vowel (as in eight and straight).  They must’ve thought accommodate was another word with that pattern.

I said, “If it is true that a word’s spelling is based on its pronunciation, can you hear whether there should be one <c> or two?”  Someone replied that they couldn’t ‘hear’ how many <c>’s were in the spelling, but that two <c>’s looked right and one <c> didn’t.  Hmmm. So they were basing the spelling on sound and looks.  What a brilliant illustration of why this word is considered tricky.  It can’t reliably be sounded out and judging its spelling by looks only works if you’ve seen the word in print a number of times and remember something about its spelling.

Now that we established why this word is said to be tricky I asked, “What if there is more to notice?  What if there is a more reliable way to understand this spelling – and not only understand it, but remember it?  What do you say we look at this word’s structure.  Let’s look at the morphemes.  Does anyone recognize a suffix on this word?”

I started with asking the students to notice a suffix because so many of the student hypotheses had a final <ate>.  When someone suggested <ate>, I asked for some other words with a final <ate> suffix.  Suggestions were ‘migrate’ and illustrate.’  So I began a blank word sum with a final <ate>.  Next I directed their attention to the beginning of the word.  “Does anyone recognize a prefix on this word?  Even if it’s not the first thing in the word.”  With that caveat, one student raised their hand and said, “<com>”.  I added that it usually brings a sense of “with” to a base, although it can also be there to intensify the action of the base.  I asked for some words with a <com> prefix.  The students thought of ‘complete’ and ‘complex.”

They were very unsure of the <ac> in front of the <com>, and I knew they hadn’t yet learned about assimilated prefixes, so I told them that it is a prefix with a sense of “to”.  We often see this prefix spelled as <ad>, but in this word, it is spelled <ac> to better match the articulation of the next element, <com>.   It would feel awkward to say *adcommodate.  In fact, if you say *adcommodate several times quickly, you will notice that your mouth smooths that pronunciation out to become ‘accommodate.’

Since we were only missing one more morpheme in this word (the base), I filled it in as <mode>.  I told the students it had a sense and meaning of “measure, manner”.  Now we could look at the word sum as <ac + com + mode + ate>.   Looking at each morpheme, I reviewed the sense or function of each morpheme in this word.  If we think about what each morpheme contributes to the meaning of this word, we have a verb that means “to measure with emphasis”.   If we connect that to our previous discussion of how we use this word , we could think of measuring something in order to make it best fit a situation.  The example I had used earlier was to make some overnight accommodations fit the needs of a family.  First we measure what those needs are and then we see how we can best fit them.

Looking back at the word sum, we talked about replacing the final <e> on the base with the vowel suffix <ate>.  We announced the word sum a few times as a group before I asked them to announce it as they wrote it down.  I wanted to point out that understanding the structure and then spelling the word by announcing its morphemes will be a more reliable strategy for spelling than sounding it out or judging the word on its looks.  We announced the fully spelled word as “ac .. com .. mod replace the e .. ate”.

If I had more time, I would have asked the students to look at this word at Etymonline.  They would have found it was first attested in 1530’s.  It derives from Latin accomodatus “suitable, fit one thing to another.”  By the late 16c it was used to mean “furnish with suitable room and comfort.”  That jives with what we discussed.  Then I would have them put modus in the search bar to find other words that share this base.  Had they done that, they would have found modest, moderate, modern, modify, commodity, and even commode.  As I have done in the past with these students, we would have read each word’s entry at Etymonline, specifically looking for a connection to “measure, manner.”  This is how to broaden their vocabulary!

Accommodate:  /əˈkɑməˌdeɪt/ (verb)

Notice that I’m using IPA.  It is a way to represent pronunciation separate from spelling.  It also signals primary and secondary stress in the word.  If the student sees where the stress is, it is easier to understand the vowel being a schwa in the unstressed syllable.  If you look back at the student hypotheses for the spelling of this word, you will see that three students thought there would be an <i> before the <d> and only one student thought there might be an <o> there.  If the student relies solely on pronunciation to make spelling choices, they are apt to make errors.  Again, learning the morphemes and spelling words by announcing those morphemes will likely eliminate that error.

<ac + com + mode + ate>
<ac> assimilated prefix from <ad> “to”
<com> intensifying prefix (intensifies or brings emphasis to the action of the base)
<mode> from Latin modus “measure, manner”
<ate> verbal suffix

Another word on this particular list of tricky words was kaleidoscope. Here is how the “tricky list” explained it.

Again, we are given a pronunciation and a definition with little connection between the two.

With another group of students I asked for hypotheses about the spelling of the word.  Here are three.

collidiscope
colidescope
collidascop

I didn’t ask for any more hypotheses at this point because I could see the misunderstanding here — and I found it fascinating.  The students thought they were hearing the familiar word ‘collide’ as part of this word.  I asked them about it.  One student explained how the bits in a kaleidoscope collide with each other as you turn the tube.  While that is a logical idea, I told them that the beginning /k/ in this word is spelled with a <k>.  They were so surprised.  The first morpheme in this word is <kal>.  A look at Etymonline tells us it derives from Greek kalos meaning “beautiful, beautious.”  I have looked in the OED to find other words with this same base, but the words I found were not familiar.  I think it’s interesting that the words kaleidophone and kaleidograph came into use after kaleidoscope, but obviously didn’t stay in use.

The next morpheme in this word is <eid> and derives from Greek eidos “shape, appearance.”  So far the two morphemes we have examined give us the sense of “beautiful shapes.”  I love that.  Every time I turn the tube of a kaleidoscope, I see another beautiful shape!  This base <eid> “shape, appearance” is an etymological relative to words with <-oid> such as asteroid “shape of a star” and adenoid “shape or form of a gland”, and also to words like idol “a form or likeness that is worshipped” and iodine “violet colored in appearance”.

Now what about the final morpheme?  The free base <scope> is one that you no doubt recognize from words like telescope and microscope.  It derives from Greek skopein (σκοπός) “watcher, observer.”  When this word was coined by the inventor of the kaleidoscope, David Brewster, he drew upon his familiarity of the word microscope and incorporated <scope>.  Now when we put all of the pieces (morphemes) of this word together, we get the word sum <kal + eid + o + scope>.  The literal meaning of this word is “watching beautiful shapes.”  Isn’t that something?

We read the word sum aloud, noting the <o> connecting vowel that is sometimes found in words that have one or more bases from Greek.   In this word, we did not find evidence that the <o> was part of either <eid> or <scope>.  In this case, it is a connecting vowel.  After we read aloud the word sum a few times, I had them recite the word sum as they wrote it down.  In this way, they are spelling a word by morphemes rather than by letter, letter, letter, etc.  We announced it as “kal .. eid .. o .. scope”.

Here’s a short video that explains how kaleidoscopes work.

Here’s another word that would be easier to remember if only we looked beyond pronunciation and definition.

I did not have the opportunity to ask a group of students about this word, but I imagine if I asked for a hypothesis about its spelling, students would suggest either seeling, sieling, ceeling, or something similar.  The thing is, they would be right had they lived in a certain area of England sometime between 1500 and 1600.  In fact, according to the OED, there were a number of regional spellings prior to the use of the printing press.  It was at that point that narrowing it down to one spelling was necessary.

So why is the current spelling the one that made the final cut?  If we follow the etymological journey of this word, it will no doubt lead us to information that will help.  According to Etymonline it entered English in the mid 14th century.  At that time it was spelled celynge and was used to mean “act of paneling a room.”  That spelling derived from the Middle English verb ceil “put a cover or ceiling over,” and later “cover walls with paneling or wainscoting.”  We can see that the current spelling matches the spelling of the ME verb!

Further back in time, it is thought this word derives from Old French (12c) celer  “conceal,” and before that from Latin celare “to hide.”  We can get the sense of lining walls or the inside of a roof with boards in order to hide or conceal the rough outer wall.  There is also the possibility that the spelling of this word is influenced by Latin caelum “heaven, sky.”  Doesn’t that add a lovely idea – that we are hiding the sky when we add a ceiling?  For those who like to imagine the sky from inside a room, there are many ceilings that have been painted, permanently marking a clear blue sky.  If you prefer to see the actual sky, you could always install skylights.

Art, Web Gallery of. “Palazzo Ducale Oculus by Mantegna.” World History Encyclopedia. World History Encyclopedia, 08 Sep 2020. Web. 20 May 2023.

By 1934, this word had the figurative sense of “upper limit.”  Currently in the U.S. there is a lot of discussion regarding our government’s debt ceiling.  That use certainly illustrates the meaning of “upper limit.”  By 1908, the phrase “hit the ceiling” was being used figuratively to mean “lose one’s temper, can’t take any more.”  More recently (1988) the phrase “glass ceiling” came into use to mean an invisible barrier, specifically applied to limiting what a woman can achieve.

This kind of word story (side note:  the word ‘story’ derives from Latin historia “history, account, tale, story.”) is what makes a spelling understood.  Things that we understand are much more memorable than those we don’t.

Now let’s look at ‘patience’.

I have a couple guesses as to what would make this a “tricky word.”  My first guess is that it is a homophone to ‘patients.’ As a reminder, homophones are words that share a pronunciation, but not a spelling (whenever it’s possible).  They have different spellings to signal different meanings.  In this case, ‘patience’ is an abstract noun meaning “tolerating delays, trouble, or suffering  without getting angry or upset.”  The homophone ‘patients’ is simply the plural form of ‘patient.’  A doctor may have one patient to see or may have several patients to see.

My second guess would be that many people don’t expect <t> to represent /ʃ/ as it does in ‘action’ and ‘motion.’  If you’ll notice, in each of those words, the <t> is followed by an <i>.  When that is the case, the <t> has the potential to be pronounced as /ʃ/.  Is it a rule?  Will it happen always?  No.  Think of ‘tin’ and ‘still.’  Even when the <i> following the <t> is part of a suffix, it may not be pronounced as /ʃ/.  Think of ‘question’ where the <t> is pronounced as /tʃ/ (as it is in ‘picture’).

So what’s happening in ‘patience.’  Is the <i> part of the suffix?  It is not.  The <ence> and <ent> in patience and patient are common suffixes.  We see them in difference/different, emergence/emergent, residence/resident, and more.  Is the <i> a suffix on its own?  Is it perhaps a connecting vowel?  It might be.  This is where we need etymological evidence.  Where is this word from?  What is its furthest back attested ancestor (prior to Proto Indo European roots)?

At Etymonline we are told that ‘patience’ is first attested c 1200.  At that time it was spelled pacience and was used to mean “quality of being willing to bear adversities, calm endurance of misfortune, suffering, etc.”  (I would pause here to discuss that definition.  Is is similar or different that how we use the word today?)  Earlier than that, this word was in Old French and spelled pacience.  It meant “patience; sufferance, permission.”  Earlier than Old French, it was in Latin as patientia and meant “bearing, supporting; suffering, enduring, permitting; tolerant,” but also “firm, unyielding, hard.”  Latin patientia was an abstract noun formed from the adjective patientem. The adjective patientem was derived from the present participle of patī “to endure, undergo, experience.”

When I saw the words “present participle” I thought of a verb and searched for patī at Latdict.  Once I found it, I checked to make sure the definitions matched what I was reading at both Etymonline and the OED.  The next thing I noticed was the past participle form of this verb – passus.  The <us> in passus is the Latin past participle suffix. Once removed, it leaves us with the Latin stem pass which came into English as the base <pass>.  Keeping in mind the denotation of this base, you will not be surprised to see it in compassion, passion, and passive.  And besides seeing the base <pati> in patience and patient, you will also see it in compatible!

A great site to visit when looking for additional related words is Robertson’s Words for a Modern Age.  If you type one of the words you are looking at into the search bar, you can begin your search. After the initial entry for the word I had searched for (patience), I found this.

I clicked on the link for <pass> and <pati> and found the following words.

compassion
compatible
dispassionate
impassioned
patient
impatient
patience
incompatible
passion
passionate
passionless
passive
passively
incompassionate
uncompassionate

The number of prefixes that are used in this word family is surprising!  How does each steer the sense and meaning of the base?  That would be a great inquiry to do with students. There are also a number of suffixes used in this family.  One possible activity would be to use the words in sentences and then to discuss how the suffix pointed to the function of that word in the sentence.  Here are two matrices that reflect the word family built on each of these two bases.

You may notice that I chose not to include ‘compatible’ on the <pati> matrix.  I can explain the structure of that word, but wasn’t sure if that explanation clear once it was in a matrix.  Here’s what I mean by that.

Using Etymonline, I see that ‘compatible’ is an adjective.  When it first entered English it meant “capable of coexisting in harmony.”  Prior to that it was in Medieval Latin as compatibilis.  Further back it was in Late Latin as compati.  The next thing we see in that entry is the bolded word ‘compassion.’  Seeing that link, I know I need to follow it to get more information about where ‘compatible’ derives from.

Towards the end of this entry, you’ll see Late Latin ‘compati’ which is where we left off in the previous entry.  It was a word built from <com> “with, together” and <pati> “to suffer.”  The word sum for ‘compatible’ would be <com + pati + ible>.  That obviously won’t work because there are not two <i>’s in the word ‘compatible.’  One of the <i>’s elided.  I can definitely understand the structure of this word, but that story can’t be told well on a matrix.  I wouldn’t list the suffix as *<ble> or the base as <*pat>.  In this situation, I would discuss this word and its structure with students, focusing on its meaning relationship to this word family.  And instead of including it on the matrix, I would list it either to the side of the matrix or just below it.

Next time you see a list of “Tricky Words,” ask your students to choose one and take a closer look.  What more can we learn when we look at the morphology and etymology?  How will that information make the word more meaningful and make its spelling more memorable?  What related words can be found during the research?

Even if your student CAN remember the spelling of a word along with a quick definition, think of what they are missing when they are aren’t taught to use the etymological resources.  Learning doesn’t have to feel like a race.  We don’t have to skip important steps in order to get to the finish line on time.  Learning takes the time it takes.  Your students deserve to enjoy the journey and to be delighted in the discoveries and connections they make along the way.  Discovering connections between words and the fascinating facts of a word’s etymological journey into Modern English are the pieces students enjoy.  They aren’t fluff.

Here’s a great quote by Marilyn Ferguson.  “Making mental connections is our most crucial learning tool, the essence of human intelligence; to forge links; to go beyond the given; to see patterns, relationships, context.”