Word Inquiry

A Word Study Investigation

1It all started with a great question from Ace Detective Mubarak

Why is there an at the end of the word ?

2As an Ace Word Detective with credentials in Real Spelling, Mubarak knew it must be there for a reason!

HmmWhat job is that doing?

3He considered some of the purposes of single, silent,

To show that the vowel before it is long?

To prevent a word from ending in ?

4Knowing that there must be a reason he approached Ms Fiona

Thats a great question Mubarak!And guess what? She didnt know the answer! 5She went to some fellow word detectives

And together they puzzled over Mubaraks great question. 6They had learned that when investigating any word it is useful to ask 4 questions.What does the word mean?How is it built?What other related words can you think of?What are the sounds that matter? 7Here are the answers they came toWhat does the word mean? To move towards.

82.How is it built?They couldnt identify any prefixes or suffixes so therefore they had to conclude is a base word.

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3.What other related words can you think of?, and Origin is Old English and it was originally spelt past tense of is

They wonderedIs there a link to , ? was originally spelt Could the spelling have been developed to avoid confusion with ?Is there a homophone for ? Yes - meaning together with like kitchen-cum-dining room.

104.What are the sounds that matter?The phonemes in are:/ k /// / m / The graphemes are: This made sense becausebut

11We had reached the limit of our understanding.It was time to call in the reinforcementsWe contacted Real Spellers worldwide via the Real Spellers Forum

12Heres what they told usThe reason for the use of :1.to avoid confusion with 2.because in old script it was hard to differentiate the letters and It would have looked like thisSince and have a job share arrangement it made sense to spell the word 13And now the answer to Mubaraks original questionThe reasons for the addition of the :

To avoid confusion with a new English prefix - as in , .

To show a connection to the word - which is the past tense of

14As Real Spellers well know - letters have several functions. Only one of which is to represent sounds or phonemes.One job that letters can do is to show links of meaning between words. Do you know any other examples?15Letters showing connections of meaning.Words that have connections of meaning also have connections of spelling.16Twotwenty, twelve, twinTalktale, told PeoplepopulationThanks to Mubarak Real Spellers worldwide are now talking about the great work that is going on at RVIS! Fiona this is so wonderfulI have learned so much just by following their hard work.Learning from a Grade 2 questionI have posted her email to me at this link on Real Spellers so that I can share the brilliance of what is going on at her school The question posed by your grade 2 studentIs a wonderful inspiration as I prepare for work this morning. Please tell him that a teacher in Tennessee, USA has been scratching his head over it for hours.

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