The English Reading Rule Bank.

A structured knowledge base of English decoding, phonics, spelling patterns, pronunciation, exceptions and teaching guidance — with every rule labelled by how far it can be trusted.

The Rule Bank is the decoding layer behind Wiggler Jr: every letter, grapheme, sound, pattern and exception a child meets while learning to read English, written down honestly and linked to the skill that teaches it.

113 reading rules across 18 categories, 47 sounds, 118 spellings, 2119 example words and 514 documented exceptions.

59 are strong rules, 39 are useful patterns with real exceptions, 12 are word families rather than rules, and 3 are irregular patterns that must be learned through exposure.

English is not letter equals sound

Most phonics references are an alphabet with one sound beside each letter. That describes a language English is not. The letter a has five common pronunciations, ch has three, ough has seven, and which one applies is decided by position, by neighbouring letters, by syllable stress, by which word family the word belongs to, and by where the word entered English from.

So the unit of knowledge here is not the letter. It is the relationship: grapheme, plus position, plus neighbouring letters, plus syllable, plus stress, plus word family, plus morphology, plus exceptions, plus accent — which together give a likely pronunciation, and sometimes only a likely one.

Every rule in this bank therefore declares how far it can be trusted. A rule that works in most words is marked as a strong rule. A rule that works often enough to try first is marked as a useful pattern. A rule that is true of eleven words and no others is marked as a word family. And a pattern with no rule behind it at all is marked as irregular, because pretending otherwise is what teaches a child that decoding cannot be relied on.

How to read a rule

Every entry carries four labels. Together they answer the question a teacher actually has: can I tell a child this, and what happens when it fails?

• Generalisation strength — What kind of thing the rule is — a strong rule, a useful pattern, a word-family rule, or an irregular pattern learned through exposure.
• Reliability — How often it holds where it could apply. High means few exceptions a beginner will meet. Low means it should not be presented as a rule at all.
• Frequency — How much of a child's reading the pattern accounts for, which is what decides whether it is worth explicit teaching time.
• Reading or spelling — Some rules help a reader and not a speller, and some the reverse. The er, ir and ur spellings are trivial to read and among the hardest things in English to write.

What is in each rule

A rule page separates the things that are usually blurred together: what to say to a child, what is actually going on, where the rule works, where it does not, which words break it, what a child is likely to get wrong, and what a teacher should avoid saying.

• Child explanation — The sentence you would say to a five-year-old.
• Technical explanation — What is really happening, for the adult.
• The rule — One clear statement of the pattern, hedged where hedging is honest.
• When it works and when it does not — The boundary, stated explicitly, so the rule cannot be over-applied.
• Exceptions — Structured as data, not buried in a paragraph, so a machine can refuse to apply a rule to get.
• Examples — Easy words first, then more, plus contrast pairs, sentences, and pseudo-words where they make linguistic sense.
• Common mistakes — What a child actually says, and what it tells you.
• Do not teach it like this — The wording to avoid, and why it causes damage.
• Teacher note — How to introduce it, in what order, and what to pair it with.
• Accent notes — Where a legitimate difference between English varieties is not an error.

Every rule, by category

The whole bank, grouped the way the rules relate to each other rather than alphabetically. Each entry opens a page with the child explanation, the technical explanation, the boundary of the rule, its exceptions, the mistakes children make with it, and what not to say about it.

Letter sounds

What each single letter can represent on its own, and what makes it change. The starting point, and the place most phonics charts stop.

• Sounds before letter names — a → /æ/, not "ay" — Teach what a letter says before what it is called. Letter names are not usable for decoding, and several of them actively mislead.
• The consonants that keep one sound — b d f h j k l m n p r t v w z — Fifteen consonants represent the same sound almost everywhere they appear. They are the reliable floor the rest of the system is built on.
• The five short vowels — a e i o u in a closed syllable — A single vowel with a consonant after it and nothing else is usually short. This is the rule that makes CVC words decodable.
• The five long vowels and how they are spelled — a e i o u saying their names — A long vowel says the letter's name. Each one has four to eight regular spellings, and which spelling a word takes is largely decided by position.
• The letter A — a — Five pronunciations, decided by what follows: a consonant, a silent e, an r, an l, or nothing much at all.
• The letter E — e — The most common letter in English, and often the one doing the least: short /e/, long /iː/, schwa, or completely silent.
• The letter I — i — Short /ɪ/ almost everywhere, long /aɪ/ before silent e and in a handful of very common families that look closed but are not.
• The letter O — o — Short /ɒ/, long /əʊ/, and a stubborn group where o says /ʌ/ — son, come, love — for reasons that are about handwriting, not sound.
• The letter U — u — Short /ʌ/, two different long values, a /ʊ/ set after p and b, and a job as a silent partner to q and g.
• The letter Y — y — The clearest case in English of position deciding sound. Y is a consonant at the start of a word and a vowel everywhere else — and which vowel depends on how many syllables the word has.
• The letter S — s — S says /s/ at the start of a word and /z/ surprisingly often elsewhere — including in most plurals, which children read before anyone explains it.
• The letter X — x — The only English letter that normally represents two sounds at once. X is /ks/ at the end of a word, /z/ at the start, and /gz/ when the stress falls after it.

Digraphs

Two letters, one sound. The first place a child has to stop reading letter by letter and start reading in units.

• SH — sh — The most reliable digraph in English. One sound, one spelling, no exceptions a child will meet.
• CH and its three sounds — ch — /tʃ/ in chip, /k/ in school, /ʃ/ in chef. Each group has a cause — and the cause is where the word came from.
• TH, unvoiced — th — The th of thin, bath and think — made with breath, no voice. Spelled identically to its voiced twin.
• TH, voiced — th — The th of this, that and mother — the same two letters with the voice turned on. Almost every common function word takes this one.
• WH — wh — Nearly always /w/. A short list of words — who, whose, whole — has /h/ instead, and they are worth learning as a set.
• PH — ph — Always /f/, and always a sign the word came from Greek. One of the most reliable graphemes in English.
• CK after a short vowel — ck — One sound, /k/, and a strict position rule: ck only ever follows a short vowel at the end of a syllable. Never at the start of a word.
• NG — ng — One sound made at the back of the mouth. It never starts an English word, and the g is not a separate /g/.
• NK — nk — The n in nk is not /n/ — it is /ŋ/. Think is /θɪŋk/, which is why nk is taught as a glued unit rather than blended.
• QU — qu — Q never travels alone in English. Qu is one unit representing /kw/ — two sounds from two letters that must be read together.
• GH — gh — Usually silent, occasionally /f/, and /g/ only at the start of a word. The single most unreliable consonant spelling in English.

Trigraphs

Three letters, one sound — and in English, usually three letters carrying a spelling convention as well.

• TCH after a short vowel — tch — Three letters, one sound, and the same position rule as ck: tch follows a short vowel, ch follows everything else.
• DGE after a short vowel — dge — The /dʒ/ sound spelled for a short vowel. Bridge, badge and judge take dge; large, huge and change take ge.
• IGH — igh — Three letters, one long i. Almost always followed by t, and one of the few places gh can be predicted with confidence.

Soft and hard sounds

C and G, and the letter that follows them. The clearest example in English of a sound decided by context rather than by the letter itself.

• Soft C before E, I and Y — ce / ci / cy — C is /s/ before e, i and y. One of the clearest context rules in English — and it has real exceptions, so it should not be taught as absolute.
• Hard C before A, O, U and consonants — ca / co / cu / c + consonant — C is /k/ everywhere except before e, i and y. This is the default, and it is nearly exceptionless.
• Soft G before E, I and Y — ge / gi / gy — G is often /dʒ/ before e, i and y — but get, give, girl and gift all break it. Far less reliable than soft c, and the difference must be taught.
• Hard G — ga / go / gu / g + consonant — G is /g/ before a, o, u and consonants, at the end of words, when doubled, and in a long list of Germanic words where soft g would be expected.

Magic e / silent e

The vowel two letters back changes, and the e itself says nothing. Silent e also does four other jobs that have nothing to do with long vowels.

• Magic e — v_e — A vowel, one consonant, then e. The e says nothing and the vowel says its name. Reliable — as long as the child knows what it does not cover.
• a_e — a_e — The commonest magic e pattern and the most reliable. Cake, name, made, late — long a with a silent e two letters on.
• i_e — i_e — Bike, time, nine, ride. Highly reliable, with give and live as the two exceptions children meet earliest.
• o_e — o_e — Home, note, bone, rope. Reliable, with come, some, done, none, gone and one as a frequent irregular set.
• u_e — u_e — Two sounds, not one: /juː/ in cube and mule, /uː/ in rule and June. Which one depends on the consonant before it.
• e_e — e_e — The rarest of the five. These, theme, Pete, eve — a handful of words, taught last and briefly.
• The other jobs of silent e — -ve, -ce, -ge, -le, -se — A final e also blocks a word ending in v or u, keeps c and g soft, props up a consonant-le syllable, and sometimes just marks a word as English.

Vowel teams

Two vowels working as one sound. Reliability ranges from near-perfect (ay) to genuinely variable (ea, ou), and the bank says which is which.

• AI — ai — Long a inside a word. Pairs with ay, which does the same job at the end — ai almost never ends an English word.
• AY — ay — Long a at the end of a word or syllable. Among the most reliable vowel teams in English — there is essentially nothing else it says.
• EE — ee — Long e, in any position, with essentially no exceptions. The single most reliable vowel team in English.
• EA and its three sounds — ea — /iː/ in beach, /e/ in bread, /eɪ/ in great. The first genuinely variable vowel team most children meet.
• OA — oa — Long o inside a word. Highly reliable, and like ai it does not end English words — ow does that.
• OE — oe — Long o at the end of a small set of words — toe, hoe, doe, goes. Rare, but the words are common.
• OO and its two sounds — oo — /uː/ in moon and /ʊ/ in book. Roughly three to one in favour of moon, with no spelling clue — but a strong clue in the following consonant.
• AU — au — The /ɔː/ of haul and sauce, used inside a word. Pairs with aw, which does the same job at the end.
• AW — aw — The end-of-word partner to au. Saw, draw, law, crawl — reliable for /ɔː/.
• EW — ew — Two closely related sounds — /juː/ in few and /uː/ in flew — split by the consonant before, and by accent.
• UE — ue — Long u at the end of a word — blue, true, rescue. The same two values as ew, split the same way.
• UI — ui — A small set — fruit, juice, suit, bruise — plus a group where the u is silent after g and q. Rare, and best learned as words.
• IE — ie — Long i at the end of a short word — pie, tie, lie — and long e in the middle of a longer one: chief, field, believe.
• EY — ey — Usually long e at the end of a word — key, money, honey. A smaller group says long a: they, grey, obey.
• EI and EIGH — ei / eigh — Long a in eight, weight and neighbour; long e in ceiling and receive. Small, awkward, and best taught as two word lists.

Diphthongs

One vowel sound that glides into another inside a single syllable. Children hear them as one sound, which is why they are taught as units.

• OW and its two sounds — ow — /əʊ/ in snow and /aʊ/ in cow, with roughly even odds and no spelling clue. A genuine coin toss that needs flexing, not a rule.
• OU — ou — /aʊ/ in cloud is the main value, but ou also gives /ʌ/, /uː/, /ʊ/ and /ɔː/. One of the most variable teams in English.
• OI — oi — One sound, one position. Oi appears inside a word and oy at the end, and between them they cover nearly every /ɔɪ/ in English.
• OY — oy — The end-of-word partner to oi. Boy, toy, joy, enjoy — one sound, essentially no exceptions.

R-controlled vowels

A vowel followed by r is neither long nor short. The r wins, and the vowel sound that results is its own thing.

• AR — ar — The /ɑːr/ of car and farm. Reliable in a stressed syllable — and reliably something else after w, and in an unstressed one.
• OR — or — The /ɔːr/ of fork and storm — except after w, where it becomes /ɜːr/, and in an unstressed syllable, where it becomes schwa.
• ER, IR and UR — er / ir / ur — Three spellings, one sound. For reading this is easy; for spelling it is the hardest thing in English, and the difference should be said out loud.
• AIR, ARE and EAR as /eər/ — air / are / ear / ere — The vowel of chair and share. Four spellings, one sound, and the same reading-easy, spelling-hard shape as er/ir/ur.
• EAR and its three sounds — ear — /ɪər/ in hear, /eər/ in bear, /ɜːr/ in earth. Three sounds, three common words, no clue in the spelling.
• W changes the vowel after it — wa / war / wor — After w, a is usually /ɒ/, ar is /ɔːr/ and or is /ɜːr/. One cause, three families, and a large number of words that otherwise look irregular.

Consonant blends

Two or three consonants, each keeping its own sound. Not digraphs — the difficulty is holding the sounds together, not learning a new one.

• L blends — bl cl fl gl pl sl — Two consonants, two sounds, said quickly. Nothing new to learn — the letters keep the values the child already knows.
• R blends — br cr dr fr gr pr tr — The largest blend family. Dr and tr are the two children most often hear as a single sound, because they genuinely shift in speech.
• S blends — sc sk sm sn sp st sw — S plus a consonant. The easiest blends to hear, because /s/ can be held and stretched for as long as a child needs.
• Three-letter blends — scr spl spr str squ shr thr — Three consonants in a row. Every one begins with s, sh or th, and the rest is a blend the child already knows.
• Final blends — -st -nd -mp -nt -ft -lt -sk -lp — Blends at the end of a word. Harder to hear than initial blends, because the final consonant is quieter in ordinary speech.

Glued and welded sounds

Letter groups that resist being pulled apart in the mouth, so they are taught whole rather than blended sound by sound.

• Glued sounds: ang, ing, ong, ung — ang / ing / ong / ung — The vowel before ng is not quite the short vowel a child has learned, so these four rimes are taught whole rather than blended.
• Glued sounds: ank, ink, onk, unk — ank / ink / onk / unk — The n in these is /ŋ/, not /n/. Four rimes, taught whole for the same reason as ang and ing.
• The -old, -ild, -ind and -ost families — -old -ild -ind -ost -olt — Closed syllables with a long vowel. Cold, child, find and most all break the short-vowel rule, and they are common enough to be taught as a set.
• The -all, -alk and -alt families — -all -alk -alt -alm — After a, the letter l changes the vowel to /ɔː/ — and in -alk and -alm the l goes silent as well.

Silent letters

Letters written but not said, almost always because they used to be pronounced. This is where over-generalisation does the most damage.

• Silent L in selected word families — alk / alm / alf / olk — L is silent in a small set of established families — walk, calm, half, folk — and in almost nothing else. Milk, silk, help and salt all keep their l.
• Silent K in KN — kn- — At the start of a word, kn is /n/. A small closed set, exceptionless, and easy to teach because every member begins the word.
• Silent W in WR — wr- — At the start of a word, wr is /r/. Like kn, a closed set with no exceptions.
• Silent B in MB and BT — -mb / -bt — At the end of a word, b after m is silent — lamb, thumb, climb. In debt and doubt, b before t is silent too.
• Silent G in GN — gn- / -gn — G is silent before n at the start of a word and after n at the end — gnat, gnome, sign, design.
• Silent GH — igh / ough / aigh / eigh — The commonest silent letters in English, and the most confusing, because the same gh is /f/ in laugh and cough.
• Silent H — h- / rh- / gh- / wh- — H is silent in hour, honest and heir, after r in rhyme and rhythm, and inside ghost and school-type spellings.
• Silent P in PS, PN and PT — ps- / pn- / pt- — At the start of a Greek-derived word, p before s, n or t is silent — psalm, psychology, pneumonia, pterodactyl.

Syllable rules

The six syllable types, how to split a longer word, and why the split is what tells you whether the vowel is long or short.

• Closed syllable — CVC — A syllable ending in a consonant. The vowel is short — the most reliable vowel generalisation in English.
• Open syllable — CV — A syllable ending in a vowel. The vowel is long — go, me, hi, robot, paper.
• VCe syllable — v_e — The magic e syllable. Vowel, one consonant, silent e — and the vowel is long.
• Vowel team syllable — CVVC — A syllable whose vowel is spelled with two or more letters. The team is one unit and must not be split.
• R-controlled syllable — Vr — A syllable whose vowel is followed by r. The vowel is neither long nor short, and the r must stay with it.
• Consonant-le syllable — -ble -dle -tle -ple -kle -gle — The final syllable of little, table, purple and candle. Three letters, one syllable, and the e is silent.
• Syllable division — VC/CV · V/CV · VC/V — Where you split a word decides whether its vowel is long or short. Three patterns cover most of English.
• Decoding a long word — prefix + root + suffix — Peel the affixes first, then divide what is left, then flex the vowels. A four-syllable word is a sequence of one-syllable problems.
• Vowel flexing — try one sound, then the other — The strategy that makes every variable grapheme workable: try the commonest sound, check whether it is a word you know, and try the next.

Word endings

Suffixes and final patterns. Several of them have more than one pronunciation, decided by the sound immediately before them.

• The -s and -es ending — -s / -es — Three sounds — /s/, /z/ and /ɪz/ — and the sound before the ending decides which. Children produce all three correctly in speech before anyone teaches them.
• The -ed ending — -ed — /t/ in jumped, /d/ in played, /ɪd/ in wanted. Only the third adds a syllable, and only after t or d.
• The -ing ending — -ing — One sound, and the root usually unchanged — but with three spelling changes to recognise: drop the e, double the consonant, or neither.
• The -er and -est endings — -er / -est — Both are unstressed, so -er is /ər/ rather than the /ɜːr/ of her. The same ending also makes agent nouns: teacher, farmer, baker.
• The -ly ending — -ly — Adds a syllable and turns a describing word into how something is done. The root almost never changes.
• The -tion ending — -tion — One chunk, one sound: /ʃən/. Read it whole and four-syllable words become manageable.
• The -sion and -cian endings — -sion / -cian — -cian is /ʃən/ like -tion. -sion is /ʃən/ after a consonant and /ʒən/ after a vowel — mission versus vision.
• The -ture ending — -ture — Pronounced /tʃər/ — picture, nature, future. The t is not /t/, which is why letter-by-letter decoding fails here.
• The -ous, -ious and -eous endings — -ous / -ious / -eous — All reduce to /əs/ — famous, serious, gorgeous. The ou is schwa, which is why it looks nothing like the ou of cloud.
• The -cial and -tial endings — -cial / -tial — Both are /ʃəl/ — special, partial, official. Another place where ci and ti spell /ʃ/.
• The -le, -el, -al and -il endings — -le / -el / -al / -il — Four spellings, one sound: /əl/. Reading them is easy; choosing between them when writing is not, and there is no rule that decides it.
• Y becomes I before a suffix — y + suffix → i — Happy becomes happier, cry becomes cried, baby becomes babies. A reliable change, and one that explains a lot of otherwise odd-looking words.
• The FLOSS rule — -ff -ll -ss -zz — After a short vowel at the end of a one-syllable word, f, l, s and z are doubled. Doubling changes nothing about the sound.

Prefixes and morphology

Meaning-carrying chunks. Once a child reads by morpheme rather than by letter, long words stop being long.

• Common prefixes — un- re- dis- pre- mis- in- im- ex- de- — A chunk of meaning on the front of a word. Peel it off and the word underneath is one a child can already read.
• Meaning suffixes: -ful, -less, -ness, -ment — -ful -less -ness -ment -able — Chunks of meaning on the end of a word. Unlike -ed and -ing, they leave the root almost untouched, which makes them the easiest suffixes to read.

Schwa and stress

The most common vowel sound in English, and the reason a child who decodes every vowel fully still sounds wrong.

• Schwa — any vowel letter, unstressed — The most common vowel sound in English, spelled with any vowel letter at all. It is why decoding every vowel fully produces a word nobody says.
• Stress — STRESSED · unstressed — Which syllable is emphasised changes the vowels around it — and in some words it changes what the word means.

Irregular and heart words

Words that cannot be fully decoded. The honest approach is to decode the part that works and map the part that does not.

• Heart words — the · was · said · come · some — Words with one part that cannot be decoded. Sound out the part that works, and learn by heart only the part that does not.
• The OULD family — -ould — Would, could, should — three words, a silent l, and a pattern that does not generalise. Shoulder and boulder keep their l.
• The AUGH family — -augh — Usually /ɔː/ with a silent gh — caught, taught, daughter. Laugh is the one that says /ɑːf/.

Word origin patterns

Greek, French and Latin spellings that look wrong by English rules and are perfectly regular by their own.

• Greek spelling patterns — ph / ch=/k/ / y=/ɪ/ / rh / ps / mn — Ph, ch as /k/, y as a vowel, rh, ps and mn all travel together. A word with one of them is Greek, and usually has another.
• French spelling patterns — ch=/ʃ/ / -que / -ette / ou / silent final consonant — Ch as /ʃ/, -que for /k/, -ette, and a silent final consonant in ballet and buffet. Later borrowings that kept French pronunciation.
• Latin spelling patterns — -tion / -sion / prefixes / silent scholarly letters — The -tion and -sion endings, the common prefixes, and the letters Renaissance scholars inserted into debt and doubt to show a Latin root.

High-variability patterns

Patterns with so many pronunciations that decoding alone will not settle them. Named honestly rather than reduced to a rule that does not exist.

• OUGH — -ough — At least seven pronunciations, and no rule at all. The clearest case in English where remembering the word beats applying a pattern.
• Accent variation — same spelling, different accents — A pronunciation that differs from the teacher's is usually an accent, not a mistake. The decoding rule is the same; only the target sound differs.

A to Z

Every rule that touches a given letter, gathered in one place. Selecting a letter shows how complicated a single character becomes once context is taken into account — the letter a alone is short a, long a, broad a, a before l, a after w, a before r, and schwa.

• A — Sounds first, Short vowels, Long vowels, A, Hard c, Hard g, Magic e, a_e, ai, ay, ea, oa, au, aw, ar, air / are, ear, w + vowel, ang ing ong ung, ank ink onk unk, all alk alt, Silent l, Closed, Open, VCe, Vowel team, R-controlled, Schwa, -cial / -tial, -le / -el / -al, augh
• B — Sounds first, Stable consonants, L blends, R blends, mb / bt, Latin patterns
• C — Sounds first, ch, ck, tch, Soft c, Hard c, L blends, R blends, S blends, scr spl spr str, Greek patterns, French patterns, -sion / -cian, -cial / -tial
• D — Sounds first, Stable consonants, dge, R blends, Final blends, old ild ind ost, -ed, ould
• E — Sounds first, Short vowels, Long vowels, E, dge, Soft c, Soft g, Magic e, a_e, i_e, o_e, u_e, e_e, Silent e's other jobs, ee, ea, oe, ew, ue, ie, ey, ei / eigh, er / ir / ur, air / are, ear, ang ing ong ung, French patterns, Closed, Open, VCe, Vowel team, R-controlled, C-le, Schwa, -s / -es, -ed, -er / -est, -ture, -ous, -le / -el / -al
• F — Sounds first, Stable consonants, L blends, R blends, Final blends, FLOSS
• G — Sounds first, ng, gh, dge, igh, Soft g, Hard g, L blends, R blends, ang ing ong ung, gn, Silent gh, -ing, ough, augh
• H — Sounds first, Stable consonants, sh, ch, th (thin), th (this), wh, ph, gh, tch, igh, scr spl spr str, Silent gh, Silent h, Greek patterns, French patterns, ough, augh
• I — Sounds first, Short vowels, Long vowels, I, igh, Soft c, Soft g, Magic e, i_e, ai, oi, ui, ie, ei / eigh, er / ir / ur, air / are, ang ing ong ung, ank ink onk unk, old ild ind ost, Latin patterns, Closed, Open, VCe, Vowel team, R-controlled, Schwa, -ing, -tion, -sion / -cian, -ous, -cial / -tial, -le / -el / -al, y → i
• J — Sounds first, Stable consonants
• K — Sounds first, Stable consonants, ck, nk, S blends, Final blends, ank ink onk unk, all alk alt, kn
• L — Sounds first, Stable consonants, L blends, scr spl spr str, Final blends, old ild ind ost, all alk alt, Silent l, C-le, -ly, -cial / -tial, -le / -el / -al, FLOSS, ould
• M — Sounds first, Stable consonants, S blends, Final blends, all alk alt, mb / bt, Greek patterns
• N — Sounds first, Stable consonants, ng, nk, S blends, Final blends, ang ing ong ung, ank ink onk unk, old ild ind ost, kn, gn, ps / pn / pt, Greek patterns, Latin patterns, -ing, -tion, -sion / -cian
• O — Sounds first, Short vowels, Long vowels, O, Hard c, Hard g, Magic e, o_e, oa, oe, ow, ou, oo, oi, oy, or, w + vowel, ang ing ong ung, ank ink onk unk, old ild ind ost, Silent l, Latin patterns, Closed, Open, VCe, Vowel team, R-controlled, Schwa, -tion, -sion / -cian, -ous, ough, ould
• P — Sounds first, Stable consonants, ph, L blends, R blends, S blends, scr spl spr str, Final blends, ps / pn / pt, Greek patterns
• Q — Sounds first, qu, French patterns
• R — Sounds first, Stable consonants, ar, or, er / ir / ur, air / are, ear, w + vowel, R blends, scr spl spr str, wr, Silent h, Greek patterns, R-controlled, -er / -est, -ture
• S — Sounds first, S, sh, L blends, S blends, scr spl spr str, Final blends, old ild ind ost, ps / pn / pt, Greek patterns, Latin patterns, -s / -es, -er / -est, -sion / -cian, -ous, FLOSS
• T — Sounds first, Stable consonants, th (thin), th (this), tch, R blends, S blends, scr spl spr str, Final blends, old ild ind ost, all alk alt, mb / bt, ps / pn / pt, French patterns, Latin patterns, -er / -est, -tion, -ture, -cial / -tial
• U — Sounds first, Short vowels, Long vowels, U, qu, Hard c, Hard g, Magic e, u_e, ou, au, ue, ui, er / ir / ur, ang ing ong ung, ank ink onk unk, French patterns, Closed, Open, VCe, Vowel team, R-controlled, Schwa, -ture, -ous, ough, ould, augh
• V — Sounds first, Stable consonants
• W — Sounds first, Stable consonants, wh, ow, aw, ew, w + vowel, S blends, wr
• X — Sounds first, X
• Y — Sounds first, Y, Soft c, Soft g, ay, oy, ey, Greek patterns, Open, -ly, y → i
• Z — Sounds first, Stable consonants, FLOSS

Sound to spellings

Start from a sound and see every way English writes it. This is the direction that matters for spelling, and the direction most phonics charts leave out: /f/ is written f, ff, ph and gh; /ɜːr/ is written er, ir, ur, ear and or; /k/ has eight spellings and the choice between them is decided by position.

Consonant sounds

Twenty-four consonant phonemes. Most are spelled one or two ways; /k/, /s/, /ʃ/ and /dʒ/ are the ones that need a rule rather than a letter.

• /p/ — p as in pig: p as in pig, pp as in happy
• /b/ — b as in bat: b as in bat, bb as in rabbit
• /t/ — t as in top: t as in top, tt as in letter, -ed as in jumped, th as in Thomas
• /d/ — d as in dog: d as in dog, dd as in ladder, -ed as in played
• /k/ — k as in cat: c as in cat, k as in kit, ck as in duck, ch as in school, cc as in occur, que as in unique, qu as in mosquito, x (as /ks/) as in box
• /g/ — g as in goat: g as in goat, gg as in egg, gu as in guess, gh as in ghost
• /f/ — f as in fish: f as in fish, ff as in cliff, ph as in phone, gh as in laugh
• /v/ — v as in van: v as in van, ve as in have, f as in of
• /θ/ — unvoiced th as in thin: th as in thin
• /ð/ — voiced th as in this: th as in this, the as in breathe
• /s/ — s as in sun: s as in sun, ss as in grass, c as in city, ce as in face, sc as in science, st as in listen
• /z/ — z as in zip: s as in dogs, z as in zip, zz as in buzz, se as in please, x as in xylophone
• /ʃ/ — sh as in ship: sh as in ship, ti (in -tion) as in station, ssi as in mission, ci as in special, ch as in chef, s as in sugar
• /ʒ/ — the s in treasure: s as in treasure, si as in vision, ge as in beige, g as in genre
• /tʃ/ — ch as in chip: ch as in chip, tch as in catch, t (in -ture) as in picture
• /dʒ/ — j as in jam: j as in jam, g as in gem, dge as in bridge, ge as in large, d (in -dual) as in gradual
• /m/ — m as in map: m as in map, mm as in hammer, mb as in lamb, mn as in autumn
• /n/ — n as in net: n as in net, nn as in dinner, kn as in knee, gn as in gnat, pn as in pneumonia
• /ŋ/ — ng as in ring: ng as in ring, n (before k) as in think
• /l/ — l as in leg: l as in leg, ll as in bell, le as in little, el as in camel
• /r/ — r as in run: r as in run, rr as in carry, wr as in write, rh as in rhyme
• /j/ — y as in yes: y as in yes, i (in onion) as in onion, u (as /juː/) as in use
• /w/ — w as in wet: w as in wet, wh as in when, u (after q) as in queen, o as in one
• /h/ — h as in hat: h as in hat, wh as in who

Vowel sounds

Every vowel sound a child meets, with every common spelling of it. The long vowels are where English gets expensive: /eɪ/ alone has eight regular spellings.

• /æ/ — short a as in cat: a as in cat, ai as in plaid
• /e/ — short e as in bed: e as in bed, ea as in head, ai as in said, ie as in friend, a as in any
• /ɪ/ — short i as in sit: i as in sit, y as in gym, ui as in build, e as in pretty
• /ɒ/ — short o as in hot: o as in hot, a (after w) as in wash, au as in because
• /ʌ/ — short u as in cup: u as in cup, o as in son, ou as in touch, oo as in blood
• /eɪ/ — long a as in cake: a_e as in cake, ai as in rain, ay as in play, a as in apron, eigh as in eight, ey as in they, ea as in great, ei as in vein
• /iː/ — long e as in tree: ee as in tree, ea as in beach, y as in happy, e as in me, e_e as in these, ie as in chief, ey as in key, ei as in ceiling
• /aɪ/ — long i as in bike: i_e as in bike, igh as in night, y as in cry, i as in find, ie as in pie, eigh as in height
• /əʊ/ /oʊ/ — long o as in boat: o_e as in home, oa as in boat, ow as in snow, o as in go, oe as in toe, ough as in though
• /uː/ — oo as in moon: oo as in moon, u_e as in rule, ew as in flew, ue as in blue, ui as in fruit, ou as in soup, o as in do
• /juː/ — long u as in cube: u_e as in cube, u as in music, ew as in few, ue as in rescue, eu as in feud
• /ʊ/ — oo as in book: oo as in book, u as in put, ou as in could, o as in wolf
• /ɔː/ — aw as in saw: aw as in saw, au as in haul, al as in talk, all as in ball, ough as in bought, augh as in caught, or (after w) as in war, oor as in door
• /aʊ/ — ow as in cow: ow as in cow, ou as in cloud, ough as in bough
• /ɔɪ/ — oi as in coin: oi as in coin, oy as in boy
• /ɑː/ — a as in father: a as in father, al as in calm, ear as in heart
• /ə/ — schwa, the a in about: a as in about, e as in taken, i as in pencil, o as in lemon, u as in support, ou as in famous

R-controlled sounds

Vowel plus r. These are neither long nor short, and /ɜːr/ in particular has five spellings with nothing to choose between them.

• /ɑːr/ — ar as in car: ar as in car, ear as in heart
• /ɜːr/ — er as in her: er as in her, ir as in bird, ur as in turn, ear as in earth, or (after w) as in work
• /ɔːr/ — or as in fork: or as in fork, ore as in more, oar as in board, our as in four, ar (after w) as in warm
• /ɛər/ — air as in chair: air as in chair, are as in share, ear as in bear, ere as in there
• /ɪər/ — ear as in hear: ear as in hear, eer as in deer, ere as in here
• /ər/ — unstressed er as in butter: er as in butter, or as in doctor, ar as in dollar, our as in colour, ure as in picture

Spelling to sounds

Start from letters on a page and see what they can say. This is the direction a reader needs. Spellings that represent more than one sound are the ones a decoder has to resolve, and they are listed first.

42 of the 118 spellings in the bank represent more than one sound. Those are the ones a reader has to resolve, and they are listed here.

• -ed — /t/ as in jumped, /d/ as in played
• a — /æ/ as in cat, /e/ as in any, /ɒ/ as in wash, /eɪ/ as in apron, /ɑː/ as in father, /ə/ as in about
• ai — /æ/ as in plaid, /e/ as in said, /eɪ/ as in rain
• al — /ɔː/ as in talk, /ɑː/ as in calm
• ar — /ɑːr/ as in car, /ɔːr/ as in warm, /ər/ as in dollar
• au — /ɒ/ as in because, /ɔː/ as in haul
• c — /k/ as in cat, /s/ as in city
• ch — /k/ as in school, /ʃ/ as in chef, /tʃ/ as in chip
• d — /d/ as in dog, /dʒ/ as in gradual
• e — /e/ as in bed, /ɪ/ as in pretty, /iː/ as in me, /ə/ as in taken
• ea — /e/ as in head, /eɪ/ as in great, /iː/ as in beach
• ear — /ɑː/ as in heart, /ɑːr/ as in heart, /ɜːr/ as in earth, /ɛər/ as in bear, /ɪər/ as in hear
• ei — /eɪ/ as in vein, /iː/ as in ceiling
• eigh — /eɪ/ as in eight, /aɪ/ as in height
• er — /ɜːr/ as in her, /ər/ as in butter
• ere — /ɛər/ as in there, /ɪər/ as in here
• ew — /uː/ as in flew, /juː/ as in few
• ey — /eɪ/ as in they, /iː/ as in key
• f — /f/ as in fish, /v/ as in of
• g — /g/ as in goat, /ʒ/ as in genre, /dʒ/ as in gem
• ge — /ʒ/ as in beige, /dʒ/ as in large
• gh — /g/ as in ghost, /f/ as in laugh
• i — /j/ as in onion, /ɪ/ as in sit, /aɪ/ as in find, /ə/ as in pencil
• ie — /e/ as in friend, /iː/ as in chief, /aɪ/ as in pie
• n — /n/ as in net, /ŋ/ as in think
• o — /w/ as in one, /ɒ/ as in hot, /ʌ/ as in son, /əʊ/ /oʊ/ as in go, /uː/ as in do, /ʊ/ as in wolf, /ə/ as in lemon
• oo — /ʌ/ as in blood, /uː/ as in moon, /ʊ/ as in book
• or — /ɔː/ as in war, /ɜːr/ as in work, /ɔːr/ as in fork, /ər/ as in doctor
• ou — /ʌ/ as in touch, /uː/ as in soup, /ʊ/ as in could, /aʊ/ as in cloud, /ə/ as in famous
• ough — /əʊ/ /oʊ/ as in though, /ɔː/ as in bought, /aʊ/ as in bough
• our — /ɔːr/ as in four, /ər/ as in colour
• ow — /əʊ/ /oʊ/ as in snow, /aʊ/ as in cow
• s — /s/ as in sun, /z/ as in dogs, /ʃ/ as in sugar, /ʒ/ as in treasure
• t — /t/ as in top, /tʃ/ as in picture
• th — /t/ as in Thomas, /θ/ as in thin, /ð/ as in this
• u — /j/ as in use, /w/ as in queen, /ʌ/ as in cup, /juː/ as in music, /ʊ/ as in put, /ə/ as in support
• u_e — /uː/ as in rule, /juː/ as in cube
• ue — /uː/ as in blue, /juː/ as in rescue
• ui — /ɪ/ as in build, /uː/ as in fruit
• wh — /w/ as in when, /h/ as in who
• x — /k/ as in box, /z/ as in xylophone
• y — /j/ as in yes, /ɪ/ as in gym, /iː/ as in happy, /aɪ/ as in cry

Word patterns

The shapes a word can take, and what each shape implies about its vowel. These are the structures syllable division operates on, and knowing them is what turns a long word into a sequence of short ones.

• CVC — Consonant, vowel, consonant. One closed syllable. The vowel is short, and this is the first word shape a child reads independently. For example: cat, sun, big, hop, wet.
• CVCe — The magic e shape. A silent e two letters after the vowel makes the vowel long. Blocked by a second consonant. For example: cake, bike, home, cube, note.
• CVVC — A vowel team inside the word. Two vowel letters acting as one sound. Never split them when dividing a word. For example: rain, boat, read, need, soap.
• CCVC — A blend at the front. Two consonants, each keeping its sound. The difficulty is blending, not decoding. For example: stop, flag, crab, swim, plan.
• CVCC — A blend at the end. Harder than an initial blend, because the final consonant is quieter in ordinary speech. For example: hand, jump, fast, lift, milk.
• CCVCC — Blends at both ends. Four consonants around one vowel. Every part is known; the load is on holding them together. For example: stand, blast, crunch, strand, splint.
• CV — An open syllable. Nothing closes the vowel, so it says its name. This is what makes go, me and the first syllable of robot long. For example: go, me, hi, she, we.
• Vr — An r-controlled syllable. The r takes the vowel over. Neither long nor short, and the r stays with the vowel when dividing. For example: car, her, bird, fork, turn.
• C-le — A consonant-le syllable. The final three letters of little, table and purple. One syllable, silent e, syllabic l. For example: little, table, purple, candle, apple.
• Prefix + root + suffix — A word built from meaning chunks. Peel the affixes before dividing the root. This is what makes a four-syllable word a sequence of one-syllable problems. For example: unhappy, remembering, hopeless, information, misplaced.

Mapped to the Wiggler curriculum

Every rule is mapped to the Wiggler Jr skills that teach it, so a story writer can check whether a word is decodable at a given point, and a lesson generator can be told exactly which patterns are in scope and which are not.

• Skill 1: First Sounds & Blending — Sounds first, Stable consonants, Short vowels, A, I, Hard c, Hard g, Closed, Heart words
• Skill 2: CVC Word Mastery — Stable consonants, Short vowels, A, E, O, U, S, X, qu, Closed, Heart words
• Skill 3: Consonant Digraphs — sh, ch, th (thin), th (this), wh, ph, ck, ng
• Skill 4: Consonant Blends — L blends, R blends, S blends, scr spl spr str, Final blends
• Skill 5: Glued Sounds & Spelling Basics — S, ng, nk, ang ing ong ung, ank ink onk unk, all alk alt, -s / -es, FLOSS, Heart words, ould
• Skill 6: Magic e — Long vowels, A, E, I, O, U, Magic e, a_e, i_e, o_e, u_e, e_e, Silent e's other jobs, VCe
• Skill 7: Open & Closed Syllables + Y — Short vowels, Long vowels, E, Y, old ild ind ost, Closed, Open, Flexing
• Skill 8: R-Controlled Vowels — A, ar, or, er / ir / ur, air / are, ear, w + vowel, R-controlled
• Skill 9: Vowel Teams (Long) — Long vowels, igh, ai, ay, ee, ea, oa, oe, ie, ey, ei / eigh, Vowel team, Flexing
• Skill 10: Diphthongs & Variant Vowels — ow, ou, oo, oi, oy, au, aw, ew, ue, ui, Vowel team, Flexing
• Skill 11: Advanced Patterns & Silent Letters — I, ch, ph, gh, tch, dge, Soft c, Soft g, Silent e's other jobs, w + vowel, all alk alt, Silent l, kn, wr, mb / bt, gn, Silent gh, Silent h, ps / pn / pt, Greek patterns, French patterns, ough, ould, augh
• Skill 12: Multisyllable Decoding — A, E, I, O, U, Silent e's other jobs, Closed, Open, VCe, Vowel team, R-controlled, C-le, Dividing words, Long words, Schwa, Stress, Flexing, -le / -el / -al
• Skill 13: Suffixes — Latin patterns, Long words, Stress, -ed, -ing, -er / -est, -ly, -tion, -sion / -cian, -ture, -ous, -cial / -tial, y → i
• Skill 14: Prefixes & Final Mastery — Greek patterns, French patterns, Latin patterns, Long words, Prefixes, -ful / -less / -ness

• The curriculum itself — 14 skills and 129 lessons — is at the Wiggler curriculum.

Exceptions and irregular families

Every exception in the bank, gathered. This exists because exceptions must be structured data rather than prose: a reading engine that sees g followed by e should propose the soft sound, and then refuse to for get, give, girl and gift — which it can only do if those four words are stored as an exception list attached to the rule.

Every exception set, attached to the rule it breaks

• Stable consonants — The letter belongs to a digraph: ship, chin, this, when, phone, ring. Two letters, one sound — the letter is no longer acting alone.
• Stable consonants — The letter is silent in a word family: knee, write, lamb, walk, gnat. Historical spelling retained after the sound was lost.
• Short vowels — Long by family, not short: wild, child, find, kind, mind, cold, old, most, post, colt. The -ild, -ind, -old, -ost and -olt families keep a long vowel despite looking closed.
• Short vowels — Short o that is not /ɒ/: son, won, some, come, love, month, front, wonder. A small group where o represents /ʌ/, mostly next to m, n or v where a medieval scribe avoided a row of identical strokes.
• A — a after w and qu: want, wash, watch, swan, squash, quality. The lip-rounding of /w/ pulls the vowel back, so the expected short a does not appear.
• A — a before r after w: war, warm, ward, dwarf, quarter. The same retraction, this time landing on the or sound.
• A — any → /e/: any, many. A one-off historical spelling; the same vowel appears in many and Thames.
• E — e in the -ed suffix: jumped, played, wanted. The e is usually not pronounced at all; -ed adds /t/ or /d/ unless the root already ends in t or d.
• E — e as part of a team: tree, bread, they, eight, her. The letter is not acting alone.
• I — i as /iː/: machine, police, marine, ski, pizza, unique. French and Italian loanwords keep the source language's value for i.
• I — give and live: give, live, olive. Final e here is preventing a word-final v, not marking a long vowel.
• O — o saying /ʌ/: son, won, ton, come, some, done, none, love, glove, above, money, honey, month, front, wonder, other, mother, brother, nothing. A medieval handwriting substitution, not a sound rule. A closed family worth naming.
• O — o saying /uː/: do, to, who, into, movie, prove, lose. A tiny group of very high-frequency function words.
• O — o before ss, ft, ng: cross, off, long, song. In some accents these take /ɔː/ rather than /ɒ/ — cross, off, long, dog.
• U — u as /ʊ/: put, push, pull, full, bush, bull, pudding, sugar. A small set conditioned by the p, b, f and l around it.
• U — u carrying no sound: queen, quiet, guess, guide, guitar, guard. After q it is part of the qu unit; after g it marks the g as hard before e or i.
• U — busy and bury: busy, business, bury. Two one-off spellings where u represents /ɪ/ and /e/.
• Y — Y inside a vowel team: day, play, they, key, boy, toy. The y is not acting alone — it is the second half of ay, ey or oy.
• Y — Two-syllable words ending -ly, -fy, -ply: reply, supply, deny, July, rely. A stressed final syllable keeps /aɪ/ even though the word is polysyllabic.
• X — x as /gz/: exam, exact, example, exist, exhaust. Voicing before a stressed syllable.
• sh — s and h in different morphemes: mishap, dishonest, mishandle, grasshopper. The letters are adjacent by accident — a prefix ends in s and the root begins with h.
• ch — ch as /k/ — Greek origin: school, chorus, chemist, chemistry, character, echo, stomach, ache, anchor, orchestra, scheme, technology, Christmas. ch transliterates Greek chi, which was /k/.
• ch — ch as /ʃ/ — later French origin: chef, machine, chalet, parachute, brochure, chandelier, moustache, Michigan. Borrowed after French had shifted the sound.
• wh — wh as /h/: who, whom, whose, whole, wholly, whore. The w stopped being pronounced but stayed in the spelling.
• ph — p and h in different morphemes: uphill, shepherd, haphazard, loophole. A compound or prefix boundary, not a digraph.
• qu — qu as /k/: unique, antique, plaque, boutique, mosquito, conquer. Later French borrowings, where French had simplified the sound.
• gh — gh as /f/: laugh, laughter, cough, rough, tough, enough, trough. The old velar fricative hardened rather than vanished in this set.
• gh — gh as /g/: ghost, ghetto, gherkin, spaghetti. Word-initial, and borrowed from Dutch or Italian rather than inherited.
• tch — Short vowel but ch anyway: much, such, rich, which, attach. Four common words that simply do not follow the rule.
• igh — eigh, not igh: eight, weight, neighbour, sleigh. A different team with a different sound, though it looks similar.
• igh — height: height. Spelled eigh but pronounced /aɪ/, which is the reverse of eight.
• Soft c — c stays hard before e or i: soccer, Celt, Celtic, sceptic. A short list, mostly recent or non-Latin borrowings.
• Soft c — Both sounds in one word: circle, circus, success, accident. The rule applies twice, correctly, to two different c's.
• Soft g — Hard g before e, i or y: get, give, girl, gift, geese, gear, begin, forget, target, tiger, giggle, gild, gimmick. Germanic and Norse words, which never underwent the softening.
• Soft g — gu to force hard g: guess, guest, guide, guitar, guard, vague. The u is a spelling device, not a vowel.
• Magic e — The e is blocking a final v or u: have, give, live, love, glove, above, blue, true, clue. No English word ends in a bare v, and very few in a bare u.
• Magic e — The e is keeping c or g soft: face, race, dance, chance, large, change, bridge, orange. Without it, face would be /feɪk/ and large would be /lɑːg/.
• Magic e — Common irregulars: come, some, done, none, gone, one, were, there, where, whose. High-frequency words where the e marks nothing at all.
• Magic e — Two consonants in the way: little, table, candle, purple, simple. The pattern requires exactly one.
• a_e — have: have. The e is blocking a final v, not marking the vowel.
• a_e — are: are, care, share, bare. An r after the vowel takes it over.
• i_e — give and live: give, live, olive, active. The e is preventing a word-final v.
• i_e — fire, wire, hire: fire, wire, hire, tired. The r changes the vowel; these are r-controlled, not plain long i.
• o_e — o_e saying /ʌ/: come, some, done, none, one, love, glove, above, shove. A medieval spelling substitution, not a sound rule. Very high frequency.
• o_e — gone and whose: gone, whose, lose, move, prove. One-off spellings with no productive pattern behind them.
• e_e — were and there: were, there, where. Both look like e_e and are neither long e nor regular.
• ai — said and again: said, again, against. Two very frequent words where ai is /e/.
• ai — Unstressed -ain: captain, mountain, certain, bargain, curtain, villain. Schwa, because the syllable carries no stress.
• ai — ai before r: air, chair, fair, hair, pair, stairs. R-controlled, not plain long a.
• ay — says: says. Reduced vowel despite the spelling — it does not rhyme with days.
• ay — quay: quay. A single French borrowing pronounced /kiː/.
• ee — been: been. Pronounced /bɪn/ in most American speech and /biːn/ in most British speech — an accent difference rather than an exception.
• ee — ee before r: deer, cheer, beer, steer, cheerful. R-controlled.
• ea — ea as short /e/: bread, head, dead, read (past tense), ready, heavy, healthy, weather, feather, leather, breath, sweat, meant, instead. A historical shortening, clustering before d, th and lth.
• ea — ea as long /eɪ/: great, break, steak. Three words, and that is the whole set.
• ea — ea before r: hear, heart, earth, bear. R-controlled, with three values of its own.
• oa — oa before r: board, roar, soar, hoarse, coarse. R-controlled: /ɔːr/ rather than long o.
• oa — broad: broad, abroad. A one-off: /brɔːd/, not /brəʊd/.
• oe — oe as /uː/: shoe, canoe. Two borrowed words.
• ow — Same rime, both sounds: brown / known, bowl / owl, low / how, mow / cow. Proof that no rule exists for this grapheme — these pairs are spelled identically after the first letter.
• ou — ou as /ʌ/: touch, young, country, cousin, double, trouble, enough, rough, tough, couple. A Norman French spelling for a vowel that later became /ʌ/.
• ou — ou as /uː/: soup, group, you, youth, route, through, wound. Later French borrowings that kept the original French value.
• ou — The ould family: could, would, should. Three words, all with a silent l, all /ʊ/.
• oo — oo as /ʌ/: blood, flood. Two words, shortened further than the rest.
• oo — oo before r: door, floor, poor. R-controlled: /ɔː/.
• au — laugh and aunt: laugh, laughter, aunt. Two words where au is not /ɔː/.
• ew — sew: sew. Pronounced /səʊ/, rhyming with so rather than with few.
• ue — ue after g and q: guess, tongue, league, plaque, antique. Silent — the u is forcing the g hard, or is part of qu.
• ui — The silent-u group: build, built, guild, guilt, guilty, guitar, guide. The u is keeping the g hard rather than forming a vowel team.
• ui — biscuit and circuit: biscuit, circuit. The ui reduces to /ɪ/ in an unstressed syllable.
• ie — friend: friend. ie represents /e/ — a one-off.
• ie — -ied from a y root: cried, tried, dried, carried. The y has changed to i and the -ed follows; the ie is not a team.
• ei / eigh — height: height. Spelled eigh, pronounced /aɪ/ — the reverse of eight.
• ei / eigh — either and neither: either, neither. Both /aɪ/ and /iː/ are standard, depending on the speaker.
• ar — ar after w: war, warm, ward, wart, dwarf, quarter, swarm. The /w/ rounds and retracts the vowel.
• ar — Unstressed -ar: dollar, sugar, collar, grammar, burglar. Schwa plus r, indistinguishable from -er or -or.
• or — or after w: work, word, world, worm, worth, worse, worst, worship. The /w/ fronts the vowel to /ɜːr/.
• or — Unstressed -or: doctor, actor, motor, tractor, colour, mirror. Schwa plus r.
• er / ir / ur — The other two spellings of the same sound: earth, learn, heard, early, work, word, world. ear and or-after-w join the set, making five in all.
• air / are — ear with three different sounds: bear, hear, earth. ear is one of the most variable graphemes in English — see its own entry.
• ear — tear, twice: tear. The same spelling is two words: /tɪər/ from an eye and /teər/ to rip.
• ear — heart: heart, hearth. The only /ɑːr/ in the set.
• w + vowel — w + a that stays /æ/: wax, wag, wagon, swam, quack. A following velar consonant blocks the rounding.
• old ild ind ost — -ost that stays short: lost, cost, frost. The lengthening did not apply to these.
• old ild ind ost — wind: wind. Two words, one spelling: /wɪnd/ the air, /waɪnd/ the action.
• all alk alt — shall and pal: shall, pal, Sally, alley. Short a despite the l — shall is a high-frequency exception.
• Silent l — L is pronounced: milk, silk, bulk, sulk, help, yelp, gulp, salt, halt, belt, melt, film, shelf, elf, golf, bald. The historical loss happened only before k, m and f. Every other consonant kept it.
• Silent l — Accent-dependent: almond, salmon, falcon. Some speakers pronounce the l in almond and salmon; both are standard.
• mb / bt — mb where the b is pronounced: number, amber, remember, tumble, bumble, September. The b starts the next syllable rather than ending this one.
• Silent gh — gh as /f/: laugh, laughter, cough, rough, tough, enough, trough. The old fricative hardened rather than vanished.
• Silent h — h restored: history, hospital, hotel, human, horrible. Most French h-words had the h put back into pronunciation.
• Latin patterns — Letters that were never pronounced: debt, doubt, subtle, receipt, island, scissors. Inserted in the sixteenth century to display the Latin root, not to record a sound.
• Open — to, do, who: to, do, who, into. Three high-frequency function words with /uː/ rather than long o.
• Open — Unstressed open syllables: about, again, animal, banana. Reduce to schwa regardless of the vowel letter.
• C-le — -el and -al endings: camel, travel, tunnel, level, animal, pedal, medal, local. The same sound, a different spelling, and no rule to choose between them when writing.
• -tion — -stion: question, suggestion, digestion. After s, the ti is /tʃ/ rather than /ʃ/.
• FLOSS — Common words with a single final consonant: if, of, us, bus, yes, this, gas, plus, pal, his, has, was. Mostly high-frequency function words that escaped the convention.
• ould — oul with a pronounced l: shoulder, boulder, mould, soul, poultry. The silent l belongs to these three words, not to the letter sequence.
• augh — laugh and laughter: laugh, laughter. The gh hardened to /f/ here, as in rough and cough.

The wordings that cause the damage

Every rule with a common wrong wording carries it explicitly, together with the reason it is wrong and what to say instead. This is the field a lesson generator should be handed alongside the rule itself, because a generator given only the rule will reach for the absolute version of it.

• Sounds first — do not say "Learn your ABCs first, then we'll start reading." The alphabet song teaches an ordered list of names. It does not teach a single thing a child can use to read a word, and children who have mastered it often assume they have therefore learned to read and are confused when they cannot. Instead: "This letter says /s/." Sound first, name second, and both can be learned in the same week.
• Short vowels — do not say "A vowel says its short sound when there is only one vowel in the word." It is not about how many vowels the word has — go, me, hi and she each have one vowel and none of them is short. It is about whether a consonant closes the syllable. Instead: "When a consonant shuts the vowel in, the vowel is short." Then contrast go with got, and me with met.
• Long vowels — do not say "When two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking." It holds for ai, ay, ea, ee, oa and oe, and fails for oi, oy, ou, ow, oo, au, aw, ew, ui and ie — roughly half the vowel teams a child meets, including some of the commonest. Instead: "Some pairs of letters are a team with their own sound." Then teach the teams one at a time.
• A — do not say "A says /æ/." It is true of a in a stressed closed syllable and of very little else. A child holding that as a rule mis-reads ball, walk, table, want, car and about — all of them common, several of them among the first hundred words. Instead: "A says /æ/ when a consonant shuts it in. Watch what comes after it: e, l, r and w all change it."
• E — do not say "A silent e at the end makes the vowel long." That is only the commonest of silent e's five jobs. It is not what the e is doing in have, give, love, house, please, little, chance or bridge — and a child who applies the long-vowel rule to have reads /heɪv/. Instead: "A final e is nearly always silent. Sometimes it makes the vowel long, and sometimes it is there for another reason."
• Y — do not say "Y is sometimes a vowel and sometimes a consonant, and you have to guess which." There is nothing to guess. Position tells you, almost without exception, and a child given the position test can read every final y they meet. Instead: "Where is the y? Front of the word, /y/. End of a short word, /aɪ/. End of a long word, /iː/." Then let them test it on twenty words.
• ch — do not say "Ch says /ch/." School, Christmas, stomach, ache and echo are all words a young child uses, and all of them break it. Stating the rule without its alternatives means the first time a child meets school they conclude they have read it wrong. Instead: "Ch usually says /ch/. In some words it says /k/ and in a few it says /sh/. Try /ch/ first, and if that is not a word you know, try /k/."
• th (thin) — do not say Marking a child wrong for saying /f/ or /t̪/ where you expect /θ/. It may be an accent feature, or a normal stage of speech development. Either way it tells you nothing about whether the child recognised the digraph, which is the thing being assessed. Instead: Check that the child read th as one sound rather than two. That is what the reading lesson is testing.
• gh — do not say "Gh is silent." Laugh, cough, rough, tough and enough are all common, all early, and all /f/. Instead: "Gh is usually silent, but in some words it says /f/. Those words have to be learned."
• Soft c — do not say "C always says /s/ before e, i and y." Soccer and Celtic are both words children meet, and absolute wording makes a child distrust the whole rule the first time it fails. The rule is strong; it is not a law. Instead: "C commonly says /s/ before e, i or y." Then show soccer, so the child meets the exception with you rather than alone.
• Soft g — do not say "G says /j/ before e, i and y, just like c says /s/." The parallel is tempting and it is false. Soft c is near-exceptionless; soft g fails on get, give, girl and gift — four of the most frequent words in a child's reading. A child told the rules are the same will mis-read all four and conclude they cannot read. Instead: "G often says /j/ before e, i or y — but not always. Try /j/, and if that is not a word you know, try /g/." Teach the flexing, and name the Germanic set explicitly.
• Magic e — do not say "Silent e makes the vowel say its name." — stated as the only thing a final e does. Have, give, love, dance, chance, house, please, little, come and some all end in e and none of them is magic. These are common words, and several of them arrive before magic e is taught. Instead: "A final e is nearly always silent. Its commonest job is making the vowel long — but it has other jobs too." Then teach the other jobs, so the child has somewhere to put have and dance.
• Silent e's other jobs — do not say "Silent e always makes the vowel long." It is wrong roughly a third of the time, and the words it is wrong about — have, give, love, dance, house, little, come — are among the most frequent in English. Instead: "The e is quiet. Sometimes it makes the vowel long. Sometimes it is doing a different job." Then name the jobs, one per lesson.
• ea — do not say "Ea says /iː/." Head, bread, ready, heavy, weather and great are all early, common words that break it. Instead: "Ea usually says /iː/. Try it, and if that is not a word you know, try /e/." Teach the flexing as the rule.
• ow — do not say "Ow says /aʊ/ as in cow." — or the reverse. Both are true about half the time. Teaching either as the rule guarantees the child is wrong on the other half, and gives them no strategy for finding out. Instead: "Ow has two sounds. Try one, listen for a word you know, and try the other if it is not." Then practise on mixed lists where both appear.
• ie — do not say "I before e except after c." The rhyme is a spelling mnemonic, not a reading rule, and it has more exceptions than most rules have examples — their, height, weird, neighbour, seize, science, ancient, efficient. It gives a reader nothing at all. Instead: "Where is the ie? End of a short word, /aɪ/. Middle of a word, /iː/." That is usable when decoding.
• er / ir / ur — do not say Teaching er, ir and ur as three different sounds a child must learn to distinguish. They are one sound. Asking a child to hear a difference that does not exist in their accent produces failure at a task that had no answer. Instead: "These three all say the same thing when you read them. When you write, you have to remember which one the word uses."
• ear — do not say "Ear says /ɪər/ as in hear." Earth, learn, early, bear and heart are all common words, several of them among the first three hundred. Instead: "Ear has three sounds. Try hear first. If it is not a word you know, try bear, then earth."
• L blends — do not say "Bl says /bl/." — treating the blend as a new grapheme with its own card. It implies the child has something new to learn, when in fact they already know both sounds. The work is in the blending, and framing it as a new fact hides that. Instead: "You know /b/ and you know /l/. Say them close together." Then practise orally, then on paper.
• old ild ind ost — do not say "A vowel before two consonants is always short." Cold, child, find, most, old and kind are all frequent, all early, and all long. Instead: "Usually short — but there are a few families that stay long, and here they are." Then teach them as a chant.
• Silent l — do not say "L is silent before k." — or, worse, "l is silent before a consonant." Milk, silk, bulk and sulk all have l before k and all pronounce it. The broader version is worse still: help, salt, belt, film, shelf and golf are all common words a child reads early, and all of them keep the l. Instead: "L is silent in some word families, like -alk and -alm." Then teach the families by name, and contrast them with milk and help in the same lesson.
• Dividing words — do not say "When there is one consonant between two vowels, split before it." Robin, lemon, seven, camel, never, cabin, river and wagon all split the other way, and they are common words. Stated as a rule it produces confident mis-readings. Instead: "Try splitting before the consonant. If that is not a word you know, try after it." The trying is the method.
• Schwa — do not say Correcting a child who decodes elephant as /el-e-fant/ by telling them they read a letter wrong. They did not. They read every letter correctly and simply have not yet applied stress. The fix is to say it again naturally, not to re-decode. Instead: "Good — now say it like you would in a sentence." The reduction happens on its own once the child recognises the word.
• Stress — do not say Teaching a rule for where English stress falls. There is not one that survives contact with real words. The noun-verb tendency covers a useful set and fails outside it, and the suffix tendencies are better taught as part of the suffixes themselves. Instead: "Try it one way, then the other, and listen for the word you know." That works, and it is what fluent readers actually do.
• Heart words — do not say "These are sight words. Just memorise what they look like." Whole-word memorisation produces far weaker retention than mapping the sounds, and it teaches a child that some words are not for decoding — which is exactly the habit that makes a guesser. Nearly all of these words are mostly regular. Instead: "Which part of this word is the surprise?" Decode the rest, and mark the surprise.
• ough — do not say Offering any rule for ough, or presenting one pronunciation as the default. There are seven groups, none dominant, and any rule stated will be wrong most of the time. A child told a rule here learns that rules cannot be trusted, which costs far more than the word does. Instead: "This one is genuinely strange. Even grown-ups just learn these words." Then teach them as a small list, and use context to settle which word a sentence means.
• ould — do not say "L is silent in the oul pattern." Shoulder, boulder and soul all say it. The silence belongs to three specific words. Instead: "Would, could and should are three words that rhyme and have a quiet l. Learn them together."
• Accent — do not say Correcting a child who reads path, dance, tune, water or either in their own accent. They have decoded the word correctly. Correcting it teaches them that their family's speech is a mistake, which damages both confidence and the willingness to read aloud — and it tells you nothing about their decoding. Instead: Check whether the child recognised the grapheme. If they read the letters correctly and said the word the way their community says it, that is a successful read.

What this bank will not do

• It will not invent universal rules — English contains highly reliable correspondences, conditional rules, historical spellings, morphological spellings, borrowed words, irregular high-frequency words and accent-dependent pronunciations. Flattening all of that into one list of rules makes the language look predictable and makes children worse at reading it.
• It will not state a rule more strongly than it holds — C commonly says /s/ before e, i and y. It does not always: soccer and Celtic exist. A child told the absolute version mis-reads the exception and then stops trusting the rule, which costs more than the two words were worth.
• It will not hide exceptions in prose — Exceptions are stored as lists attached to the rule they break, so they can be read by a person and queried by a program.
• It will not mark a valid accent as wrong — Water, dance, schedule, tune and either differ between General American, British and Indian English. Where a rule's outcome depends on accent, the rule says so.
• It will not generate pseudo-words where they make no sense — Pseudo-words test whether a child has the decoding rule rather than the vocabulary. They are listed only for rules that are genuinely productive — never for irregular words, where there is no rule to test.

What reads this

The bank is written as structured data because five different things need to query it, and prose would serve none of them.

• Teachers and tutors — Looking up how to introduce a pattern, and what not to say about it.
• Story and lesson writers — Checking whether a word is decodable at a given skill before putting it in a decodable text.
• The reading engine — Proposing a likely pronunciation for a grapheme in context, with a confidence level and an exception check.
• Assessment — Identifying which decoding rule a child has not yet acquired, rather than only producing a reading score.
• AI lesson generation — Receiving the rule, its examples, its exceptions, its prerequisites and its forbidden misconceptions, so generated phonics content cannot invent a rule that does not exist.

How this bank checks itself

Two checks run over every rule. The first looks for absolute wording — always, never, every time, all words — on a rule that has not declared itself highly reliable, because "C always says /s/ before e, i and y" is the exact failure this bank exists to prevent. Hedged wording such as "almost never" is not flagged, since that is the phrasing the check is trying to encourage.

The second looks for structural gaps: a rule with no child explanation, no teacher note, no examples, or a link pointing at a rule that does not exist.

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