Overview of English spelling problems

To become even just a moderately competent speller of English one has to memorise
at least 3695 common words with exceptional spellings
(listed in the various subsections of this website).

(Understanding English Spelling provides a more detailed analysis of English spelling inconsistencies and the learning difficulties which they cause.)

English has 88 main basic spelling patterns (shown in table 1), but they all have some exceptions (tables 2, 3 and 4 below); 22 spelling patterns have so many exceptions that they are not really patterns at all. The worst of these are shown in table 2

Table 1 66 basic English spelling patterns and  22 pseudo-patterns

41 Vowel Spellings

Consonant Spellings

 

Short vowels

 

The biggest consonant spelling problem is consonant doubling
(when to use bb, dd, ff, gg, ll, mm, nn, pp, rr, ss, tt,
zz, and ck, tch or dge after a short, stressed vowel
in root words of more than one syllable

  cat

 

  pet

 

  sit

 

  pot

 

  mum

 

46 CONSONANT PATTERNS

  would  wool  pull

 

  bob

  pop

 

 

  rat

Long vowels

 

 

 

In stem of words and stressed endings

   K-sound

 

pane

pay

 cat, cot, cut
 kept, kit
  clap
  milk
  peek
  rock
  comic
  queen[Kw-sound]
  taxi [Ks-sound]

 send

seen / mean

see / tea / me

  fence

bite

by / high / tie

  decide

stole / coal

low / so / toe

  office / promise / trellis

cube

cue / new

 

fool / rule

too / blue / flew

shop, rush

scout

cow

  station

oil

boy

  machine

awful / autumn

saw / for*

  essential

 

*in UK English

 

       vicious

Blends with r

 

chip

 

cart

 

catch

tot

dormouse

 

 

 

term / turn / girl / earl

 

dad

 

air / dare / bear

 

film

this (voiced or

 

 

gag

thing unvoiced)

Endings of longer words

 

 

 

daddy

 

jab, job, jug

van

better

 

agent

have

blizzard

 

cage

 

believable

 

gentle / jest

willow

evidence

 

 

 

evident

 

hand

yes

musical

 

 

 

sample

 

leg

zip

hasten / certain / abandon

 

well

absorb, wise

solitary / cemetery / symmetry

will

 

delicate / favourite / democrat

 

vision

Beginnings or prefixes

 

mum

 

decide

 

net, ten

 

include

 

ring

 

The most problematic spellings in learning to read and write English are:

Unsystematic consonant doubling (e.g. happy - rapid, apply),
Random and overlapping spellings for the EE-sound and short E-sound

                                             (e.g. sleep - leap, leapt – slept;  friend - field)
Unsystematic and overlapping use of the letters o and u
                     (onother, once, only, woman, women, womb; move – over;
                             cup – come, couple,  flood;  food – wood, put – foot).

Table 2:

This shows how many words use the 11 spelling patterns that cause both reading
and spelling problems and how many fail to conform.
Examples of each pattern are given in the 1st column,
numbers of words using them and not using them in the 2nd and 3rd columns.
The most common divergent spellings and their numbers are shown on the right.
(The links show the lists of words which use or disobey each pattern
.)

 Pattern

 No of words     with pattern

 No of words not using pattern

 Examples of divergent spellings

 Total number  to memorise

 Consonant doubling

 

 

 (missing 323)           (surplus / wrong 298)

 

 e.g. horrid, yellow

381*

605

 forest, melon,              correct, parallel

986

 

 

 

 

 

EE-sound and E

 

 

 

 

keep

132*

322

 leap 152*, here 86,   believe 31, police 29

454

kept

 300

64

 leapt 49,   said, friend

64

 

 

 

 

 

OO-sounds

 

 

 

 

spoon

72*

57

 rude 31, soup 13, shrewd, move

129

too

18*

34

 flew 12, blue 8, do, through, shoe

52

wood

15*

21

 put 15, would, woman

36

 

 

 

 

 

Other tricky vowels

 

 

 

 

stole

 170

101

 coal 37, roll, bowl, soul, control

101

go

 50

60

 blow 42, toe, though, cacao

60

 

 

 

 

 

out

 74

23

 brown

23

 

 

 

 

 

but

 308

68

 some 50, country 14, blood

68

pot

 375

35

 want 30, gone, cough

35

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1698     618

1390

 total of quirky spellings to memorise

2008

 * It can be seen that consonant doubling and the spellings for EE and OO sounds have so many             exceptions that they really have no pattern. Learners simply have to memorise, word by word, when    to double a consonant, how to spell the EE-sound and when to use or not to use oo. When the            biggest number of common words using a particular spelling pattern is smaller than the total of            words using alternative spellings, the spellings are all simply unpredictable.

 The above patterns are all very difficult for learners because they all cause both reading and spelling       problems, and because between them they account for nearly half of all English spelling difficulties,         i.e. 2008 divergent spellings out of 4206 (which occur in 3700    words out of the 6800 most                  commonly used ones). - Some words, like 'quay', have more than one irregularity.

 © Masha Bell 2006,  author of 'Understanding English Spelling', 2004,   mashabell@aol.com

Nearly all English spelling patterns have some exceptions

 The 11 most problematic patterns (consonant doubling, ea, e, u, o, o-e, oo, ou and ow) have been
 summarised in
table 2. Another  22 spelling patterns shown below make learning to spell English quite tricky
 too because they also have fairly numerous exceptions and necessitate the individual memorising of 1665
 spellings; but unlike the patterns listed in table 1, they rarely cause reading difficulties as well. Just a few,
 like 'eight – height', impede reading progress too (R).

Table 3: 22 spelling patterns with 1668 unpredictable spellings between them.

 13 Vowel patterns

 occurrences

 exceptions

 Examples of exceptions
with numbers of words for biggest subgroups

 term*

70*

125

fur 65, fir 36, earn, work, were, journey  R

       better

340

136

visitor 75, grammar 34, harbour 18

 

 

 

also similar:  future 42, data 45

       hasten*

73*

131

abandon 68, urban 34, certain

 

 

 

 

 cake

338

108

main 90, weight 10, break    R

 

 

 

 

 fault*

39*

64

dawn 17, all 14, shawl 8, salt 10, nought

 

 

 

 

       ordinary*

37*

55

battery 25, carpentry, luxury

 

 

 

 

 bite

278

79

bright 18, cycle 26, kind 12, height    R

 

 

 

 

 for

188

62

more 22, your, door, oar-

 

 

 

(in UK 13 more, e.g. saw)

 care

31*

27

air 15, aerial, there, their

 

 

 

 

       pertinent / pertinence

176

58

dominant / dominance

 

 

 

 

 bit

421

53

system 45, pretty, women    R

 

 

 

 

       daddy

602

51

monkey 26, movie 8, taxi 12, coffee

 

 

 

 

 due*

20*

22

few 19, view, menu

9 Consonant patterns (involving 5 sounds)

 

 

 

 firm, if

580

43

photo 35, puff, rough, staff, laugh

 

 

 

 

 gag

198

40

ghost, guess, guilt, league

 gem*

20*

19

jet, jig

 

 

 

 

 send

138

47

centre 18, city 18, science

   fence, ancestor, agency

218

90

sense 35, base 21, consider, courtesy, embassy

   fortress*

21*

40

basis 20, practice 17, promise

 

 

 

 

   station

580

34

diversion 19, ocean, fashion

   essential*

20*

15*

commercial 14, controversial

   vicious*

20*

15

pretentious 12, luscious

 

351*

1314

making a total of 1665 spellings to memorise

*  Patterns in which the exceptions outweigh or nearly equal the number of words which obey it.

R Exceptional spellings which present some reading difficulties as well.

Table 4: 57 English spelling patterns have only 533 exceptions between them.

26 patterns with relatively few exceptions

31 patterns with minimal or no exceptions

 

v
o
w
e
l
s
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

c
o
n
s
o
n
a
n
t
s

Pattern

N

other

Examples of other spellings

Pattern

N

other

Examples

critical

195

33

towel 28, civil                                              

cat

466

2

sal