sl as in island
sle as in isle
hl as in kohl
9 responses to “l”
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sl as in island
sle as in isle
hl as in kohl
The Spelfabet shop has affordable, downloadable spelling teaching resources.
Hated it didn’t give me what I wanted
Sorry to hear that, can you be a bit more specific about what you wanted?
Hi, If you have time, could you please look at this page of phoneme-spellings pairings? (link is below) It has listed il, al, el, ol as making a /l/ phoneme. However, I don’t think this is the case. What do you think? Thanks 🙂
https://www.phonicbooks.co.uk/content/uploads/2016/05/complex-phonic-code-poster-OLDER-2020.pdf
Hi Rose, this is a tricky question because the sound /l/ can act as a syllable in words where it follows an alveolar stop (/t/ or /d/) e.g. rattle, bottle, paddle, peddle etc, we don’t bother saying a vowel, just go straight to the /l/. Of course some words like this are spelt as in petal, metal, pistol, etc, and teaching kids the difference between the ‘le’, ‘al’, ‘el’, ‘il’ and ‘ol’ spellings that don’t have a vowel pronounced and those that do is kind of diminishing marginal utility. I tend to nowadays teach final syllable ‘le’ words first and tell kids to just say /l/ for them (even if they do have an unstressed vowel in normal speech) and then later on ask kids to over-pronounce the other spellings to include the ‘short’ vowel most commonly represented by that vowel letter. Hope that makes sense, All the best, Alison
Hi Alison, I just had a look at Sounds-Write Unit 18 /l/ and they say that pencil, petrol and petal are spellings of /l/ and that doesn’t sound right to me. I would say the second syllable in these words is a schwa – otherwise the second syllable has no vowel. If we say the word precisely in its syllables we would say pe – tal, pronouncing the /a/.
I would love to know your thoughts before we modify the Sounds-Write version at my school. Thank you 🙂
Hi Michelle, yes, I generally agree with you and so does the Macquarie dictionary, it has phonetic script for each entry clearly showing that words like ‘pencil’ and ‘petrol’ as well as ‘level’ and ‘crackle’ end with a schwa plus /l/ sound. However, the word ‘petal’ and words like ‘lentil’, ‘hostel’ and ‘battle’ don’t usually have a schwa between the /t/ and the /l/ in ordinary speech, because /t/ and /l/ are both alveolar sounds (produced with tongue behind teeth) so it’s possible to shift straight from /t/ to /l/ without an interceding vowel, and because /l/ is a sonorant (loud, vowel-like) sound it can be a syllable on its own in such words. The same thing happens when there is a /d/ (the voiced pair sound of /t/, also alveolar) followed immediately by an /l/ as in ‘model’, ‘sandal’ and ‘idol’ or ‘idle’, if you have a dictionary with phonetic script this is worth checking out (or use an online one). The sound /n/ can also be a syllable on its own after /t/ or /d/, as in ‘button’ and ‘widen’. The sounds are dissimilar enough not to blur together, and /n/ is another sonorant sound. However, in words like ‘spasm’ and ‘Autism’ there is a schwa vowel before the /m/ (even though we don’t write it) because the sound before it is not produced in the same location as /m/ (or at least I can’t find any words that end in pm or bm).
I think children should be taught to say such words in a ‘spelling voice’ (including the ones that do have /l/ or /n/ final syllables) because it’s too complicated to explain the whole alveolar-stops-don’t-need-a-vowel-between-them-and-/l/-and-/n/ thing to kids, so really we should treat final spelling ‘le’ as in crackle, rattle, little etc as a spelling of /l/ and pronounce the rest the way they are spelt when spelling them. I think I’ve told John at Sounds-Write this is what I think, happy to do so if not. Hope that all makes sense! Alison
sorry I didn’t say this important bit, according to Sounds-Write, are spellings of /l/
Hi Alison,
Just found this thread! I am teaching the Sounds-Write Unit 18 /l/ also at present and wondered the same thing. So just to clarify, is it ok to teach words like ‘pencil’ and ‘petrol’ as you would polysyllabic words ie. ‘very precisely in their syllables’? eg p-e-t / r-o-l and help them recognise the /o/ as a shwah?
Thanks, Kate
Yes, I prefer to teach words like ‘metal’, ‘novel’, ‘pencil’, ‘petrol’ and ‘careful’ using my ‘spelling voice’, over pronouncing the vowel in the last syllable, and just teach three spellings of /l/: l/lit, ll/well and le/battle. Words that have an alveolar sound (/t/ or /d/) before the last syllable do actually have just an /l/ sound as the last syllable, as the tongue is already on the alveolar ridge for /t/ or /d/ so there’s no need to put a schwa before the /l/. We just say /l/ as the last syllable of ‘candle’ and ‘battle’, in the same way we just say /n/ as the last syllable of words like ‘button’ and ‘sadden’. /l/ and /n/ are both voiced, sonorant sounds so they sometimes form a syllable alone, without a vowel. HOWEVER, I think this is too much linguistic detail for most kids, and it’s better to just say that ‘le’ is pronounced /l/ in ‘title’, ‘handle’, ‘humble’, ‘hassle’ etc, but the rest of what Sounds-Write and Phonic Books call spellings of /l/ are better treated as vowel plus /l/. A lot of the ‘al’ ones are suffixed forms, as in ‘brute-brutal’, ‘ethic-ethical’ and ‘hormone-hormonal’ so when we start adding suffixes we start contradicting ourselves and telling kids to say /al/ anyway. Sigh. Hope that’s helpful and not confusing and apologies to John et al at Sounds-Write, who I imagine wish they had not included so many spellings of /l/ in the extended code anyway. All the best, Alison