When the spelling hides the sound

What are these questions asking?

Alliteration is the same sound repeated at the beginning of nearby words. Onomatopoeia is a word that imitates a noise — crash, hiss, babbled.

Your child knows both definitions, and the definitions are worth no marks on their own. Every mark in this question type is somewhere else.

The words where spelling and sound disagree

Philippa fried four fresh fish.

Five words, one sound — fff — and look at the first one. Philippa. Spelled with a p.

That is the question. Not what is alliteration, but can you still hear it when the spelling is trying to hide it.

A child matching first letters reads p, f, f, f, f and answers four. A child saying it aloud hears five.

The four ways spelling hides a sound

Silent letters at the start. Knight begins with an n sound. Gnome with an n. Wrist with an r. Hour with a vowel. The letter you can see is not making a noise at all.

Letter pairs that say something else. Ph says f — photograph, Philippa. Ch says k — chemist, chorus.

Soft and hard letters. C says s in city and k in cat. G says j in giant and g in goat. So city and cat do not alliterate, though both begin with the same letter.

The vowel that follows, which is usually what decides whether a c or g is soft or hard.

Can you show me a worked example?

Onomatopoeia, and the overlap

Onomatopoeia is more straightforward: a word that sounds like the thing it names. Crash, sizzle, rustle, babbled.

Worth knowing that a phrase can be both. The brook babbled repeats the b sound — alliteration — and babbled imitates the noise water makes — onomatopoeia. A question asking for one does not stop a phrase containing two, and noticing the second is often what a follow-up question wants.

Where do pupils lose marks?

Matching letters instead of sounds, which is the whole design of the question.

Missing alliteration spread across a line, because they looked only at neighbouring words.

Answering the definition when the question asked for an example, or the effect.

Try it yourself

Say each one aloud before answering. The eye is the wrong tool here.

1. Does Philippa alliterate with fried and fresh?
2. Do city and cat alliterate?
3. Which sound begins knight, and what does it alliterate with?
4. Do chemist and chair alliterate?
5. Is 'the brook babbled' alliteration, onomatopoeia, or both?

Show Answers

How much practice does this type need at home?

Almost none as an exercise, and a great deal as a habit. When you are reading together, occasionally ask what sound a word starts with — not what letter.

Use the awkward ones: knight, honest, photograph, chemist, city, gnome, wrist. Ten seconds each, and it builds exactly the reflex this question type tests, which is listening to a word instead of looking at it.