Beneath the Surface of Words

19 Sept

This is my top recommendation for understanding the logic of English spelling. Sue Hegland has a friendly, no-nonsense style (“Let’s take a look at the spelling <eye>, often regarded as completely bonkers…”), and she has a gift for clear explanations.

What it’s about

This book really does help to get ‘beneath the surface of words’. The author shows how morphology, etymology and orthography can explain all sorts of spellings that would otherwise be regarded as ‘irregular’.

Topics covered include:

an introduction to morphology (including word sums and matrices, bound bases and associated bases)
suffixing conventions
orthographic and etymological markers
homophones
function and content words
and much more.

Who is it for?

The author doesn’t assume any prior knowledge, so this book is suitable for beginners who want to understand the principles behind English spelling. Those who are familiar with Structured Word Inquiry and the Real Spelling approach will recognise many of the concepts described. Nevertheless, I’d recommend this book even to those who already have a good understanding of these approaches because it is such a well-written text, packed with examples, and summarising so many useful ideas.

The best thing

The best thing about this book is the way it encourages the reader to think about spelling not as blindly following rules, but as an investigation into why a word is spelled in a particular way: How does this spelling avoid confusion? What would happen if a different letter was used? How does this spelling reveal connections to other words?

After reading this, you will be far better equipped to ease students’ frustration with the apparent irregularities of English spelling!

Podcast pairing

On the Triple R Teaching podcast, Sue has an interesting discussion with Anna Geiger that covers many of the topics in this book.

Listen here

Katharine Barden

Beneath the Surface of Words