A reconsideration of English spelling · 2026
A talk for fellow educators and reading specialists — on what English orthography is organized to preserve.
heal → health
Where we begin
Sound matters. Phonemic awareness and explicit, systematic phonics are foundational to learning to read. None of that is in question here.
This talk asks a narrower question — and an additive one: alongside sound, what else is the spelling system built to carry?
The question
An exception to the rule —
or a piece of evidence?
Part I
Before spelling, before sound — the thing a writing system exists to carry.
The premise
Human beings create meaning.
Language is the flexible system through which meaning is preserved, communicated, investigated, and expanded.
What writing is
It is easy to assume that letters are simply a transcription of sounds — that spelling is speech, written down.
But written English is an organized orthographic system. It preserves meaningful relationships across time, context, and community — not just the sounds of a moment.
The thesis
Orthography is not a pronunciation-preserving system.
It is a relationship-preserving system.
It holds morphological, semantic, historical, and etymological relationships steady — even when pronunciation changes.
A careful distinction
It is not
A claim that sound is unimportant, or a rejection of phonics.
It is
A claim that sound is not the only organizing principle — and that relationship is the other.
Part II
The same surprising spelling, read two different ways — and the consequence of each.
Consider one pair
heal → health
The vowel sound changed. The spelling did not. What do we make of that?
Reading one
heal→health
The learner encounters an exception — and is asked to memorize it.
Reading two
heal→health
The learner encounters evidence — and is invited to investigate.
The distinction
Exception vs. evidence
Perhaps the single most important conceptual move in how we talk about reading: the same word is either a thing to be tolerated, or a thing to be understood.
Part III
Four families of words. In each, watch what stays fixed and what is free to move.
Evidence · 01
heal→health
The grapheme <ea> is kept for its flexibility — one spelling, holding two pronunciations of the same idea.
Preserved
The spelling of <heal> — the meaning "to make whole."
Changes
The vowel sound: /iː/ in heal → /ɛ/ in health.
Evidence · 02
sign→signature
The <g> is unpronounced in sign and spoken in signature. The "extra" letter is not extra — it is the family showing itself.
Preserved
The morpheme <sign> — "a mark" — across sign, signal, signature.
Changes
Whether the <g> is articulated: unspoken, then spoken.
Evidence · 03
act + ion → action
There is no -tion suffix in English. The word is <act> + <ion> — the <t> belongs to act.
Preserved
The base <act>, intact, when the suffix <ion> joins it.
Changes
The sound at the seam: /t/ becomes /ʃ/ where base meets suffix.
Evidence · 04
two→twin→twelve→twenty
The <tw> carries "two-ness." The /w/ is unpronounced in two, yet the spelling keeps the whole family — and its meaning — visible.
Preserved
Spelling and meaning — the <tw> marks every member as "about two."
Changes
Pronunciation — including the lost /w/ of two.
Read together
| Word family | What stays stable | What changes |
|---|---|---|
| heal → health | spelling relationship | pronunciation |
| sign → signature | spelling relationship | pronunciation |
| act → action | spelling relationship | pronunciation |
| two → twenty | spelling & meaning | pronunciation |
The apparent irregularity is not disorder. It is the system preserving something other than sound.
Part IV
If not sound alone, then what — exactly — is the system holding steady?
The system at work
Morphological
Bases and affixes kept intact — heal, sign, act.
Semantic
Shared meaning made visible — the "two-ness" of tw-.
Etymological
A word's origin and word-relatives preserved in its letters.
Historical
Older forms carried forward, even as speech moves on.
A closer look
<ea>
One spelling can hold more than one pronunciation — heal / health, read / read. The choice of <ea> lets a family keep one face while its sound flexes.
A fair caution
Sound is not unimportant. It is simply not the only organizing principle.
Decoding and the orthographic view are not rivals. Phonics opens the word; relationship explains why the word is built the way it is.
Part V
The same letters, under two different sets of assumptions.
The shift, in full
| Traditional view | Orthographic view |
|---|---|
| Words are individual items. | Words live in relational networks. |
| Spelling represents sound. | Spelling preserves relationships. |
| Irregular words are exceptions. | Irregular words are clues. |
| Learn the rule. | Investigate the evidence. |
| Accuracy is the goal. | Understanding is the goal. |
Part VI
Why this reframe matters most for neurodivergent and dyslexic learners.
The change in the work
Memorization treats every surprising word as a separate burden — a fact with no home, held only by repetition.
Investigation gives each word a place in a structure. The learner stops carrying facts and starts reading a system that explains itself.
Listen to the question change
"How do I remember this word?"
↓
"What is this word showing me about how the system works?"
The deeper shift
From compliance toward inquiry.
From memorization toward explanation.
For a learner who has struggled to memorize, a system that can be reasoned about is not a smaller demand — it is a fairer one.
Where this leaves us
Exceptions become evidence.
A different relationship with language — one that asks not only how a word sounds, but what it is built to keep.
Thank you
Questions, counter-examples, and hard cases especially welcome — bring the words that trouble the theory.