My school sponsored me to undergo the Orton Gillingham course early this year. This term, I am given 4 students and tasked to engage in literacy coaching with them.

Anyway, it was during one such lesson that I discovered that -tion and -sion are both pronounced as /shun/. I have never put two and two together before!

My regular students are learning about travel vocabulary, so I hastily found an image that conveys how vacation and vision both end with the sound /shun/, laminated it and scurried to class to teach them that.

Pasted the image proudly on their board. Someone spoke up, “passion”.

“Oh yes! Ends with -ion!” I exclaimed.

She was on a roll because five minutes then passed before she piped up again, “mission”.

“Oh yes!” I think I gave her the thumbs-up before scribbling her magnificent contributions on the image.

Thus ended school.

Just now, when I was washing dishes, things just clicked in my mind. Since -cian is also pronounced as /shun/, why don’t I give my students dictation tomorrow? Example sentences can include:

- My passion is to watch musicians perform during my vacation.

- The mission is to groom the technicians of tomorrow for the nation.

Can’t wait to see how well they can spell these sentences!