OnTrack Reading

Spalding’s phonogram list in the 4th Edition of The Writing Road to Reading, published while she was alive, differs from the list in the 5th Edition which was written by a select committee after her death. They only changed one phonogram, dropping gh in favor of gu, both spellings of /g/, but originally Spalding advocated presenting all of the consonant letters in order followed by the vowel letters in order. Thus, in the 4th Edition, the order is b, c, d, f, g, etc., to z, then a, e, i, o and u. The committee which did the 5th Edition moved the first 26 phonograms around, introducing some vowels earlier.

I think Spalding had it right, since most children in first grade already know the alphabet so going through their associated sounds in the same order as they said the alphabet gives them something familiar to which to anchor the new information. Sorting out the vowels and presenting them after the consonants served the dual purposes of creating two separate classifications, consonant and vowel letters, as well as temporarily postponing the letters with more complex pronunciation options.

Since my proposal to eliminate Spalding’s five rules governing the ending “e” involves adding several phonograms, it seemed prudent to survey the Extended Ayres List of words presented in the Spalding curriculum to see when various spellings first surface. And, since the committee that designed the 5th Edition also altered the Ayres list somewhat, a decision had to be made as to which list to survey. I chose to go with the 5th Edition’s word list, thinking that most teachers will have that copy and any recently-trained Spalding teachers will probably also be using the new word list.

Here is a PDF file of the survey: Download the Ayres List Survey

What the survey shows is the order I would propose to teach the phonograms when the additional phonograms are added. It also lists a number beside each phonogram and then a word next to the number. The number is the place the phonogram first appears in the Ayres list of the 5th Edition and the word is the word in which the phonogram first appears. Thus, the phonogram b first appears in word number 24 and that word is bed. Note: The word is provided because the words in the list in the book are not numbered and I had to number them myself. Some slight errors might have occurred in the process.

Now, look at what happens at proposed phonogram number 56, the ending phonogram se. Up to and including position 56, all of the phonograms first appear in words below word number 185 except for qu and z (which were part of the first 26 letters presented.) In fact, the vast majority appear before word number 150.

But after phonogram number 56, the next time any of those phonograms is encountered in the Ayres list is at word 225 when the phonogram ew shows up in the word new for the first time. Note how far into the Ayres word list many of these phonograms finally make their initial appearance.

This is important, because it implies that by teaching the new phonogram list in the order suggested here, one need only get to phonogram number 56 to accomplish what Spalding did with her original 54. That is, children only need to learn 56 phonograms before they can start learning the words of the Ayres list, assuming the new phonogram list is structured as suggested here, and presumably all of Spalding’s recommendations for books that can be read at various stages remain intact.

What has actually been changed by these suggested modifications? Well, a few phonograms have been added, their order of introduction has changed a somewhat, and the assigned sounds have changed for a few of the original phonograms. As compensation, the rule structure used to explain the ending e has disappeared from the curriculum. And, while the change from 70 to 84 phonograms is certainly a significant increase, most of the additional memorization load occurs well into the curriculum when children should not be troubled by it.

The next page added to this section of the Guide contains a PDF file in which each of the 84 phonograms is listed, along with the sounds each represents and any particular instructional advice that applies to a particular phonogram.

Next: The Revised Phonograms, or return to the OnTrack Reading Home Page.