lesson
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Have you ever tried to spell the word magician and wondered why it uses the letter c even though you clearly hear a "sh" sound?
English spelling does not just follow sounds โ it is built from meaning clues called morphemes.
A morpheme is the smallest part of a word that carries meaning, like a root word, prefix, or suffix.
๐Interactive diagram
How can looking for these meaning blocks help you solve other tricky sounds in words?
Finding the Base Word
When you hear a sound that could be spelled in many ways, look for the base word โ the simplest form of the word before extra parts are added.
In words like musician and electrician, the ending sounds like "shun", but we use -ian because the base words are music and electric.
๐Interactive diagram
What about words where you cannot decide whether a letter should be doubled?
Snapping Prefixes in Place
A prefix is a morpheme added to the beginning of a base word to change its meaning, such as dis- (meaning opposite of) or un- (meaning not).
When you add a prefix, the spelling rule is simple: you never drop or add extra letters, you just snap the two whole morphemes together.