To try to master these except in the connections in which
we wish to use them the writer believes to be worse than folly.
By studying such words in pairs, confusion is very likely to be fixed
forever in the mind. Most spelling-books commit this error, and so are
responsible for a considerable amount of bad spelling, which their
method has actually introduced and instilled into the child's mind.
Persons who read much are not likely to make these errors, since they
remember words by the form as it appeals to the eye, not by the sound
in which there is no distinction. The study of such words should
therefore be conducted chiefly while writing or reading, not orally.
While we must memorize, one at a time as we come to them in reading or
writing, the words or syllables in which the same sound is represented
by different spellings, still we should know clearly what classes of
words to be on the lookout for. We will now consider some of the
classes of words in which a single syllable may be spelled in various ways.
Vowel Substitutions in Simple Words.
ea for e` short or e obscure before r.
already
bread
breakfast
breast
breadth
death
earth
dead
deaf
dread=
early
earn
earnest
earth
feather
head
health
heaven
heavy=
heard
lead
learn
leather
meadow
measure
pearl
pleasant
read=
search
sergeant
spread
steady
thread
threaten
tread
wealth
weather
ee for e: long.
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