Orthography: The orthography of a language is the correct way to write & spell in that language. The word itself is of Greek origin combining the words 'orthos' meaning correct and 'graph' meaning to write or draw.
Correct Spelling
The combination of letters to form words or spelling is a large part of English orthography. Although English is a non standard language, it is systematic and patterned. Learning to spell is a process of working out the patterns and systems of English and applying these understandings to new words as they are encountered. The systems of Anglo Saxon, Latin and Greek all combine to form our orthography. Learning to spell inEnglish requires that one understands these systematic codes by which English is written.
Spelling is a thinking process, not a rote learning task. The process should consist of the application of different strategies that would include; sound sequences (phonemic awareness), knowledge of sound symbol relationships (graphemes), visual patterns and meaning (word structure & etymology). Students must learn to classify, hypothesize, generalize, and look for patterns and relationships between spelling and meaning. These processes should be explicitly taught in order to stimulate meta cognitive thinking, not to mention, improve writing fluency, reading comprehension and expand vocabulary.
Rules & Generalizations
As these different linguistic systems are combined, problems arise. Here rules are important for creating a consistent code. The letter e is the primary grapheme for the long ē sound /ē/. However the letter e also serves as a signal to change the preceding vowel sound to a long vowel sound where the final e is not pronounced (silent e). This poses a problem for writing the /ē/ sound at the end of a word. Think of the word baby made up of the sounds /b/ /ā/ /b/ /ē / . The final sound is a long /ē / but it cannot be represented by the letter e because it would become a silent-e. How can the sound of /ē/ be represented at the end of a word when the letter e is a silent marker used at the end of English words? The grapheme y stands in to represent the /ē/ sound at the end of multislabic English words with similar signal "powers" for preceding vowels.
Lets examine another conflict between phonology and the latin concept of suffixes. When making an English verb past tense the suffix -ed is added. When the the final consonant of the base word is the letter t or the letter d the suffix is pronounced /ed/ ( float-ed, sprint-ed, bound-ed, need-ed ). If the base word ends in a voiced sound (voice box is vibrating) the suffix -ed is pronounced with a /d/ sound (snow-ed, yell-ed, aim-ed). If the base word ends in a unvoiced sound (the voice box is not vibrating) the suffix -ed is pronounced with a /t/ sound (crack-ed, shipp -ed, jump -ed). This phenomenon exists because the orthographic rule asks our voice to attempt the impossible, switch from a voiced sound to an unvoiced sound in consecutive phonemes.
