Ways of spelling consonant and vowel sounds

Spelling most consonant sounds is usually fairly simple. For example, if you hear the sound /b/ you know to use the letter b - big, crab, banana

However, there are a few which need a closer look. For example:

the /s/ sound is sometimes spelled with the letter c, as in circle

the /j/ sound is sometimes spelled with the letter g, as in bridge

the /f/ sound is sometimes spelled with the letters ph, as in phantom


circle	bridge	phantom

These and other tricky consonant spellings are covered later in the course.

More spelling mistakes are made with vowels than consonants. This is because:

each vowel can be used to spell more than one sound
e.g. dog, gold
there are often several ways to spell the same vowel sound
e.g. road, arrow, bone
two vowels can combine to form yet more sounds
e.g. down, boy, house