3. What if I Told You There Was No ‘Complex Code’? webinar (PD538)

When I was at the beginning of my career and still developing resources for my students and trainees, I was once tempted to create a grapheme inventory, that is, a list of all the symbols we use in the English writing system. It wasn’t long before I realised that I was becoming preoccupied with trying to make sure I had covered every letter sequence in every word so that I couldn’t be “caught out” by others. My approach was to isolate a single speech sound, and then find examples of words that contained what looked like corresponding graphemes. It became problematic quite rapidly. My linguistic training kept ringing alarm bells.

This is the nature of the so-called ‘complex code’. It is full of problems. The solution, however, is easier than you might think. Join me for a webinar that replaces “letter sequences are spellings for sounds” with “letter sequences are pattern-based, elegant, and can be learned effectively when we bear morphology and etymology in mind.