Painstakingly compiled these insights from various teaching notes. Maybe you will learn a fun thing or two about the English language.

Basic Facts about English Phonics

The English alphabet has 26 letters that, either alone or in combination, represent roughly 44 phonemes (25 consonants & 19 vowels)

Rules for spelling and pronouncing English vocabulary often go out the window due to an amalgamation of roots in Germanic and Latin languages — “ough” in English has at least six different pronunciations depending on the word! (Try saying “tough,” “through,” “plough,” “cough,” “dough” and “fought” in a row)

15% of all English words are phonetically irregular words.

‘so’ is a regular word while ‘to’ is a phonetically irregular word.

‘Q’ & ‘U’ stick together like glue

To remember the 3 sounds of ‘y’: cry baby of the year

To remember that ‘c’ makes the soft c sound when followed by ‘e’, ‘i’ & ‘y’: Elephants In Yellow

To remember that ‘G’ makes the soft g sound when followed by ‘e’, ‘i’ & ‘y’: Gentle Gingle goes to the Gym

Very few English words end with “I”. Examples include some abbreviated words (like taxi, which is short for taximeter cab) or words taken from other languages (like spaghetti). The letter ‘y’ is used instead. 

If you come across words that end with ‘i’, chances are that they are taken from other languages. Spaghetti, ravioli and paparazzi are from Italian

No English words end with ‘j’. So, when you hear the /j/ sound at the end of an English word, it actually ends in -ge or in -dge. 

No English words end with ‘v’. This is because when we hear a ‘v’ sound at the end of a word in English, it will end in ‘-ve’.. As the final ‘e’ is silent, so we just need to pronounce the ‘v’ sound. Such words include ‘love”.

Fun spelling fact: ‘You’ & ‘ewe’ have the same pronunciation but no letters in common.