My Little Ones

In my other job as a primary school Learning Assistant, I spend lots of time helping five-year-old children learn how to read and write. Some of this is very straightforward and they can easily figure out the spelling of a word using phonetics. However, there are so many oddities in the English language that we can’t explain or make up a rule for. So when they ask me, “Why is could not spelt c u d?” I have to simply reply, “Because English is weird so you just have to try and remember these strange spellings by heart.” These difficulties are even more pronounced in those children whose parent language is not English. They don’t necessarily have the ear that native speakers do so the process is even harder. Poor little things are exhausted at the end of the day because their brains have been working so hard to take in this new and sometimes nonsensical information.

So next time you’re struggling to spell something or Word underlines your work in that red wiggly line, give yourself a break and remember that any language is difficult but English is especially tricky with lots of rules; but even these have exceptions. One of my favourite posters tells us ‘i before e. Except when your foreign neighbour Keith receives eight counterfeit beige sleighs from feisty caffeinated weightlifters. Weird.’

As a side note, my regional English accent (the Midlands) is quite pronounced when a word has a prominent ‘u’ sound in it which makes helping the children sound out ‘b u s’ quite a struggle for all of us.