Spelling English Explained with Paquita Boston | Reading Rules Books

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Spelling explained in simple English

Spelling Explained
with Paquita Boston

"Why doesn't HIS end in Z?" I could not say.
"Mum, you are making me learn things you do not understand."
I had to agree. I promised to find out.

Looking for an answer to this simple question from a five year old, I learnt the word 'orthography'. It's the orthodox graphics of a language, its accepted spelling. The accepted spelling of English needs a lot of explaining because English is not a pure language. Its words obey spelling rules from all over the world, past and present.
It took me ages to discover these rules and the reasons behind them — reasons for the exceptions, too, the rebel words which break the rules.

For my first book, I sorted the dictionary into words of increasing reading difficulty and listed them under relevant reading rules. Many revisions later, Reading with Rules is now called Spelling Rules, Reasons and Rebels as you Learn to Read. It's suitable for teaching five year olds or fifty-five year olds, because I explain spelling in simple English. For example, I say 'word sound' instead of 'phoneme'.

In another book, The Inside Story on English Spelling, each chapter is a stand-alone chat on various aspects of spelling.

Bbook title 'Spelling Rules, Reasons and Rebels as you Learn to Read' as on book cover.

Book title 'The Inside Story on English Spelling' as on book .cover.

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