Phonetically Driven Errors In Spelling And Writing

Introduction

Spelling and writing are the use of letters to form a word or sentence. Alphabetic writing is basically phonetic. Pronunciation is an important aspect and therefore the use of phonics should be correct. In this report I will identify the accurate, inaccurate and phonetically driven errors made in spelling and writing by learners in the grade 1, 2 and 3.

Phonetically inaccurate

Phonetically inaccurate is the use of words, speech sounds or written sentences which are incorrect in the language system. Therefore in my research at the school I’ve been placed at, I have gathered that there are students who have problems phonetically related and the way it is used in sentence construction. Grade 1 students tend to copy incorrectly from the chalk board, thus creating a series of

Furthermore sentences are copied without understanding of what has been written. Grade 2 learners are finding it difficult to spell certain words e.g. “Shoe” as “shur”, “flush” as “fluch”, “ship” as “chip” , “was” as “wash” and ping as pink. Grade 2 learners seem to not understand the differences between different phonetic sounds and the use thereof. This is due to the fact that most learners use isiZulu as their home language and not English. Students don’t understand what is being taught to them if not explained in their mother tongue. Language is not at its weakest in the grade 2 classroom but can be improved. Grade 3 learners seem to have the same problem as the grade 2. Words such as ocean has been spelled as oshan, mother as moda and pear as fear. There seems to be a system of copying between learners as seen in these