Word Families & Letter Patterns
How to improve and learn spelling using letter patterns and word families..
It's important to start 'really' seeing words, noticing patterns and thinking about words that are linked by a letter pattern and meaning (but not the sound).
Good spellers see these patterns, links and understand relationships between words.
“These relationships in spelling help us to understand the meaning of words much more than the pronunciation does .”
“The purpose of English spelling isn’t about the sound but the visual links between words.”
“English spelling is often for the eye rather than the ear, and focussing on visual links can help us work out difficult words like homophones, silent letter and word order like two.”
Knowing the meaning of Latin and Greek word roots can help you with spelling words by helping you know whether there are double letters or not:
terain or terrain, memory or memmory, permision or permission? appear or apear? (check below for the answers)
Let's have a look at some word families - words that are linked by a letter pattern and meaning.
sign (Latin signum to mark, indicate, a symbol) sign, signal, signpost, signature, design, resign, assign, significant
real - reality, realise/realize, really, realistic/unrealistic
-ped- (from Latin for foot) pedicure, pedestrian, pedal, expedition
-terr- (from Latin terra for earth, land, ground) terrain, territory, subterranean, Mediterranean, extraterrestrial
-rupt- (from Latin for broken) - rupture, interrupt, disruption, eruption, bankrupt, corrupt, abrupt
-ject- (from Latin- throw) - reject (throw away!), rejection, projection (to throw light on something!), projectile, dejection, objection, adjective (to throw light on nouns!)
-mem- (remembering/memory) memory, memo, remember, memorabilia
-miss- (send)- mission, submission, dismissal, permission
-val- (related to worth or strength from Latin valere) - value, equivalent, interval, invalidate, evaluate
-appear- (come into view) appear, disappear, appearance,
