Editing Phonics (section)

===The alphabetic principle (also: The alphabetic code)===
[[English orthography|English spelling]] is based on the [[alphabetic principle]]. In the education field it is also referred to as ''the alphabetic code''.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.readingrockets.org/article/teaching-alphabetic-code-phonics-and-decoding|title=Teaching the alphabetic code, Reading rockets.|date=24 April 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://phonicsinternational.com/unit1_pdfs/The%20English%20Alphabetic%20Code%20-%20complete%20picture%20chart.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/https://phonicsinternational.com/unit1_pdfs/The%20English%20Alphabetic%20Code%20-%20complete%20picture%20chart.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live|title=The English Alphabetic Code, Phonics international}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nichd.nih.gov/sites/default/files/publications/pubs/nrp/Documents/report.pdf|title=National reading panel, pg. 2-89, nichd.nih.gov (USA)}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://publications.teachernet.gov.uk/eOrderingDownload/0201-2006PDF-EN-01.pdf|archive-url=http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20100512233640/http://publications.teachernet.gov.uk/eOrderingDownload/0201-2006PDF-EN-01.pdf|url-status=dead|archive-date=2010-05-12|title=INDEPENDENT REVIEW OF THE TEACHING OF EARLY READING: FINAL REPORT, EDUCATION AND SKILLS, UK|access-date=2020-05-25}}</ref> In an alphabetic writing system, [[grapheme|letters]] are used to represent speech sounds, or [[phoneme]]s. For example, the word ''cat'' is spelled with three letters, ''c'', ''a'', and ''t'', each representing a phoneme, respectively, {{IPAc-en|k}}, {{IPAc-en|æ}}, and {{IPAc-en|t}}.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://reading.uoregon.edu/big_ideas/au/au_what.php|title=Alphabetc principle, University of Oregon, USA}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Cox|first1=Robyn|last2=Feez|first2=Susan|last3=Beveridge|first3=Lorraine|title=The Alphabetic Principle and Beyond: Surveying the Landscape|publisher=Primary English Teaching Association|location=Australia|year=2019|isbn=9781925132472}}</ref>

The [[orthographies|spelling structures]] for some [[alphabet|alphabetic languages]], such as [[Spanish orthography|Spanish]], [[Russian phonology|Russian]] and [[German phonology|German]], are comparatively orthographically transparent, or [[Orthographic depth|orthographically shallow]], because there is nearly a one-to-one correspondence between sounds and the letter patterns that represent them. English spelling is more complex, a [[Orthographic depth|deep orthography]], partly because it attempts to represent the 40+ phonemes of the spoken language with an alphabet composed of only 26 letters (and no accent marks or [[diacritic]]s). As a result, two letters are often used together to represent distinct sounds, referred to as ''[[digraph (orthography)|digraphs]]''. For example, ''t'' and ''h'' placed side by side to represent either {{IPAc-en|θ}} as in ''math'' or {{IPAc-en|ð}} as in ''father''.

English has absorbed many words from other languages throughout its history, usually without changing the spelling of those words. As a result, the written form of English includes the spelling patterns of many languages ([[Old English]], [[Old Norse]], [[Norman language|Norman French]], [[Classical Latin]] and [[Ancient Greek|Greek]], as well as numerous modern languages) superimposed upon one another.<ref>{{cite book |author=McGuinness, Diane |title=Early reading instruction: what science really tells up about how to teach reading |publisher=MIT Press |location=Cambridge, Mass |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-262-13438-5}}</ref> These overlapping spelling patterns mean that in many cases the same sound can be spelled differently (e.g., tr''ay'' and br''ea''k) and the same spelling can represent different sounds (e.g., m''oo''n and b''oo''k). However, the spelling patterns usually follow certain conventions.<ref>Wren, Sebastian. "Exception Words", Southwest Educational Development Laboratory. Retrieved from {{cite web |url=http://www.sedl.org/reading/topics/exception.html |title=Regular and Exception Words - SEDL Reading Resources |access-date=2007-10-18 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071011183306/http://www.sedl.org/reading/topics/exception.html |archive-date=2007-10-11 }}, September 30, 2007.</ref> In addition, the [[Great Vowel Shift]], a historical linguistic process in which the quality of many vowels in English changed while the spelling remained as it was, greatly diminished the transparency of English spelling in relation to pronunciation.

The result is that English spelling patterns vary considerably in the degree to which they follow rules. For example, the letters ''ee'' almost always represent {{IPAc-en|iː}} (e.g., ''meet''), but the sound can also be represented by the letters ''e'', ''i'' and ''y'' and digraphs ''ie'', ''ei'', or ''ea'' (e.g., sh''e'', sard''i''ne, sunn''y'', ch''ie''f, s''ei''ze, ''ea''t). Similarly, the letter cluster ''ough'' represents {{IPAc-en|ʌ|f}} as in en''ough'', {{IPAc-en|oʊ}} as in th''ough'', {{IPAc-en|uː}} as in thr''ough'', {{IPAc-en|ɒ|f}} as in c''ough'', {{IPAc-en|aʊ}} as in b''ough'', {{IPAc-en|ɔː}} as in b''ough''t, and {{IPAc-en|ʌ|p}} as in hicc''ough'', while in sl''ough'' and l''ough'', the pronunciation varies.

Although the patterns are inconsistent, when English spelling rules take into account syllable structure, phonetics, etymology, and accents, there are dozens of rules that are 75% or more reliable.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Identifying reliable generalizations for spelling words: The importance of multilevel analysis |journal=The Elementary School Journal |volume=101 |issue=2 |pages=233–245 |jstor = 1002344|last1 = Abbott|first1 = Mary|year=2000 |doi=10.1086/499666 |s2cid=144630056 }}</ref> This level of reliability can only be achieved by extending the rules far outside the domain of phonics, which deals with letter-sound correspondences, and into the [[morphophonology|morphophonemic]] and [[morphology (linguistics)|morphological]] domains.