Information for teachers

Many students find English spelling so complex that they often invest it with more importance than it really merits or feel that they will never learn to spell properly. In fact, English spelling is about 90% regular, with rules and guidelines which can be learnt and followed. These pages aim to show students that there is a strong correlation between spelling and pronunciation in English and that if they follow certain clearly defined rules they will be able to master the spelling of most words. Unfortunately, they will also have to learn the irregular spelling of some words, but with practice they will succeed.

The worksheets here examine certain combinations of written vowels and show how these different combinations can be grouped under certain pronunciations. The students will need to understand phonetic symbols. If they do not understand them, it is a good idea to learn them as they are used in most dictionaries and can be a useful guide to the pronunciation of new words.

Click on the links below to look at the free sample sheets. Try the free sample pronunciation file! Click on the link and wait a few moments for the sound files to load. They are in WMA format, so you may need Windows Media Player.

Vowel sounds 1	/i:/, /3:/, /כ:/, /a:/
Vowel sounds 2	/e∂/, /i∂/, /au/, /∂u/
Punctuation and spelling answers	Answers to the pronunciation and spelling activities
Vowel sounds pronunciation 1a	/i:/