Resources for parents & students
Hard and Soft Gg Rules
Hard Gg: If the letter Gg is in front of the vowel – a, o or u, then it usually takes its own sound of hard Gg.
Soft Gg: It the letter Gg is in front of the vowel – e, i or y, then it usually takes the sound of Jj.
Hard Gg: If the letter Gg is in front of the vowel – a, o or u, then it usually takes its own sound of hard Gg.
Soft Gg: It the letter Gg is in front of the vowel – e, i or y, then it usually takes the sound of Jj.
Hard and Soft Cc Rules
Hard C: If the letter Cc is in front of the vowel – a, o or u, it usually take the sound of the letter Kk.
Soft C: If the letter Cc is in front of the vowel – e, i or y, it usually takes the sound of the letter Ss.
Hard C: If the letter Cc is in front of the vowel – a, o or u, it usually take the sound of the letter Kk.
Soft C: If the letter Cc is in front of the vowel – e, i or y, it usually takes the sound of the letter Ss.
Those Tricky OO Sounds
Often, the OO sound is long, as in words like school, room, boot, moon, and goose. But occasionally, it has a shorter sound, as in book, took, look, cook, foot, and cookie.
How do you know which pronunciation of OO to use when you see it in words?
Here is a rule that works in most situations: In general, if “oo” is followed by a K, it is short, and otherwise, it is long.
Exceptions: foot, soot, and stood, which use the short sound.
Often, the OO sound is long, as in words like school, room, boot, moon, and goose. But occasionally, it has a shorter sound, as in book, took, look, cook, foot, and cookie.
How do you know which pronunciation of OO to use when you see it in words?
Here is a rule that works in most situations: In general, if “oo” is followed by a K, it is short, and otherwise, it is long.
Exceptions: foot, soot, and stood, which use the short sound.
Spelling Continuum
The following basic list is one example of the development of spelling skills and knowledge. It should be noted that children vary greatly in their developmental and their progress through the stages should not be used as a diagnostic measure of their intellectual ability or skill acquisition. The information is intended to inform the reader of a continuum of growth toward mastery that for some may extend into adulthood.
Stage 1
Stage 1
- two letter words
- simple consonant – vowel – consonant (c-v-c) patterns (ex. cat, bat, rat)
- silent e
- change first vowel from short vowel (hop) to long vowel (hope)
- double 'ee' and double 'oo'
- c-v-c words with initial blends (ex. fr- tr-, br-)
- word families
- two syllable words
- Dolch sight words
- advanced phonics
- compound words
- short vowel, long vowel
- r-controlled and consonant blend patterns
- introduction to -ight endings
- few compound words
- contractions
- compound words
- blends (ex. agree, choose, half)
- qu- words
- consonant doubling
- homophones
- plurals with 'y' endings
- suffixes (ex. -ed, -ing, -tion) and inflections used with them (drop final e)
- prefixes (a-, ex-, in-, un-)
- consistently spell – roots, prefixes, suffixes, contractions and syllable constructions
- commonly misspelled words
- spell derivations correctly by applying the spelling bases and affixes (ex. capital with the -tion becomes capitalization)