Why are English words spelt the way they are?

To begin our enquiry into our big question:

      CAUSATION:      Why are English words spelt they way they are?

we began with a post it note and jotted anything we knew about the question. We then shared our ideas with our table partners to find out their theories or understandings. 

To help extend their understanding, we jotted down words that have 1 syllable with our partner and then shared some of these as a whole class.  As I wrote some of their words on the board, I occasionally would say: 
" I wonder why this word is spelt like this?"
"I wonder why this word has two t's in it?"

We kept repeating this process for 2, 3 and 4 or more syllable words all the time encouraging the children to wonder why these words are spelt that way and connections they can see if the spelling of the words in all the columns we were generating.  (See below)

Looking at all the words, I then asked the children to share any connections they can see with the way those words were spelt.  

Some of our connections we made were:

° They all have vowels

° They are separated into sounds

   (Someone later expanded on this idea by suggesting they are separated by 

     syllables)

° They all have base words   

° Many have affixes added to them:  prefixes or suffixes

We identified prefixes we could find and then suffixes.

Suffixes we identified were:

AL,   ING,   ER,   ABLE,  ION,   S,   IAN,   LAND

Someone suggested the LY in BUTTERFLY was a suffix.  We debated about that 

and we then wondered whether FLY is a suffix of BUTTERFLY or not. Someone suggested it wasn't because BUTTERFLY is a compound word and we discussed what they are. Are compound words spelt because of meaning or sound?  Does BUTTER connect in meaning with BUTTERFLY? Is there ham in a HAMBURGER? Is a PINEAPPLE a type of APPLE? We felt this would be something interesting to discover- Why were compound words created and spelt in that way if they have no connection with the little words inside the words.

Such a great question to investigate!

We identified prefixes we could find in our words:

   SUPER,    A,    INTER,    PHOTO,   PRE

We wondered why the words BUTT, BOTTOM and BUTTERFLY all had 2 t's.

After this, we then wrote more on our post it note that showed what we knew now about: Why are English words spelt the way they are?

This helped us to expand upon our previous theories / knowledge.

A sample of how understanding expanded:

Whole class original and expanded theories / knowledge:

Some of our theories I know, aren't correct and that is perfectly alright.  I wouldn't expect them to be.  As we continue with our enquiries, we will reflect back on these and see what changes we want to make and how to expand on them further. 

We shared our understandings and also some wonderings we had about spelling in English:

Some great investigative questions emerged for future enquiries such as:

° Why do we need affixes?

° Does every word have a base word?

° Why do we have compound words?

° Are there any other reasons why English words are spelt they way they are?

° Are more words in English spelt because of sound or meaning?

° Why do some words have 3 or more different meanings / spelling such as chilly, chili and chilli?

From a pretty simple idea that was mostly generated with student ideas, we were able to come up with a really amazing and deep understanding of why English words are spelt the way they are.  

On top of this, the level of curiosity, excitement and pride in making discoveries was really high!

PS  After sharing this idea on Twitter, I was reminded that I had misspelt Canadian!   I showed the Twitter to my class and so we learnt how spelling IS an important skill to develop. :P