1. Ch. 1: Structure of English
Carma Ellis

2. What?
PHONEMES: smallest unit of spoken language that makes a difference in a word’s meaning
42-44 different phonemes (linguists argue exact number)
/h/ /a/ /t/ = three phonemes
CONSONANT PHONEMES
25 consonant phonemes, 18 represented by a single letter (/d/, /t/), 7 represented by two letters (/sh/, /ch/)
No unique phoneme assigned to c, q, and x, instead those are represented by other letter spellings (/k/ or /s/ for c, /kw/ for qu, and /ks/ for x.
VOWEL PHONEMES
18 vowel phonemes used singly and in combination, includes r-controlled vowels

3. What? CONSONANT PHONEME CLASSIFICATIONS Place of Articulation
(where in the mouth the sound is produced)
Manner of Articulation
(how the sound is produced)
Voiced or unvoiced sounds
(whether vocal cords vibrate or not)
See chart page 25

4. What? VOWEL PHONEME CLASSIFICATIONS Place of articulation
Tongue position (front to back, high to low)
Lip position (wide and smiling, rounded and wide open, rounded and partially open)
Pronunciation of a vowel varies according to regional and dialect differences.
Schwa is an indistinct vowel sound, an empty vowel with no identity.
Dipthongs (/oi/ /oy/ /ou/ /ow/) shift in the middle as the lips change position from the rounded to smile.
R-controlled vowels are vowels where the consonant r affects
the sound of the vowel that procedes it (bird, far, hire)
See chart page 27

5. What?
SOUND/SPELLINGS
Graphemes (letters, which represent sounds)
Phonemes (sounds)
Phonemes and graphemes put together are sound/spellings.
Phonemes are often represented by more than one grapheme.
Phonics is the relationship between phonemes and graphemes.
Phonics Elements and Sound Spelling Categories chart pages 29-34
Most Frequent English Sound/Spellings page 35

6. What? SYLLABLES: word or part of a word pronounced as a unit.
Only one vowel sound per syllable
Four Division Principles (chart page 36)
Six common types (chart page 37)

7. What? ONSET-RIME: the two parts of a syllable
Onset is everything in a syllable before the vowel
Rime is everything in a syllable including and after the vowel
Phonogram: term sometimes substituted for rime, in the word back, b is the onset and –ack is the rime or phonogram
Nearly 500 words can be derived from only 37 “rhyming” phonograms.
Phonograms charts pp

8. What? MORPHEME: meaningful parts of words (word-part clues)
Majority of morphemes comes from three languages
Greek
Latin
Anglo-Saxon
One syllable or multi-syllable
Two types
Free morphemes stand alone as words (help, play, run)
Bound morphemes must be attached to other morphemes to make words (affixes, Greek and Latin roots)
see chart pages 44-47

9. Conclusion English includes five word structures Phonemes
Consonant Phoneme Classifications
Vowel Phoneme Classifications
Sound/Spellings
Syllables
Onset-Rime
Morphemes
Being able to identify and utilize these word structures enables one to successfully read, write and comprehend the English language. Best teaching practices includes teaching, assessing, and reteaching the component of each word structure.