Spelling Nest Open the app

Blog

Why is English spelling so hard for children to learn?

· 8 min read

A closed plain navy book, a navy pencil, a mug of tea and a blank ruled notepad on a pale wooden table, with a pink rose in a small vase.

English spelling is hard for children to learn because it cannot be worked out from sound alone: one sound can be written in several ways, and some spellings simply have to be learnt word by word. The national curriculum for England says most people read words more accurately than they spell them, so a child who reads well may still find spelling difficult.

Key takeaways

  • The national curriculum notes for Year 1 say that matching sounds to letters, which spelling depends on, is more variable than the reverse, so children need more word specific practice.
  • A 2003 study of English and twelve other European writing systems found that reading developed more than twice as slowly in English, and that study measured reading, not spelling.
  • The national curriculum expects children to use phonics, how words are built from meaningful parts, and where words come from, and it says that some spellings in root words simply have to be learnt.
  • A linguist's account traces the irregularity to borrowed vocabulary, pronunciation that moved while spellings stayed, and above all printing, which fixed spellings before they had settled.

Why is English spelling so hard for children?

English spelling is hard for children because the link between sounds and letters is more reliable in one direction than the other. The Year 1 notes in the national curriculum make the point directly: the way sounds are matched to letters, which is what spelling relies on, is more variable than the way letters are matched to sounds, which is what reading relies on. The same notes say that this is why children need more practice on individual words.

Put simply, a reader meets letters and has a limited set of sounds to try. A speller hears a sound and often has several ways to write it.

Is spelling really harder than reading?

For most people, spelling is harder than reading, and the national curriculum says so. In the introduction to its spelling appendix the document states: “Most people read words more accurately than they spell them.”

It gives a reason. Once children know more than one way to spell a sound, the right choice depends on deliberate learning or on absorbing words through reading, and younger pupils have not had time to absorb every word they want to write.

That explains a pattern many parents notice: a child reads a word without hesitation and then misspells it in writing. Spelling a word correctly in practice but missing it in a test is a related but separate question, covered in why a child can spell a word at home but not in the test.

Is English harder to learn than other languages?

English is harder than most other European languages at the first stage of reading, according to one widely cited study, though it did not measure spelling. In 2003 Seymour, Aro and Erskine compared English with twelve other European writing systems. They tested children on letter knowledge, reading familiar words and reading simple made up words.

Children in most countries became accurate and fluent at this level before the end of their first school year. French, Portuguese and Danish were exceptions, and English was the most pronounced. The authors report that the rate of development in English was more than twice as slow as in the most regular systems, and that this did not appear to be explained by the age at which children started school or by how well they knew their letters. They attribute it instead to how complex syllables are and to orthographic depth, which in plain terms is how consistently written letters stand for sounds.

Two limits apply. The study looked at the first stage of reading, so it cannot tell us how long English children take to learn to spell, and it describes groups, not any one child. What it does show is that the authors place the difference in the writing system itself.

Why does English spelling not match how words sound?

English spelling does not match the sound of many words because of when the written language settled. The linguist Arika Okrent, writing in Aeon in 2021, argues that the central cause is timing: printing arrived while spelling was still unsettled, and fixed it before anyone had agreed what it should be. Three strands run through her account.

The words came from several places. Viking invasions from the eighth century added Old Norse to Old English, and the Norman Conquest of the eleventh century added French. Okrent writes that the written tradition was broken after 1066, and that written English then disappeared almost entirely for around three hundred years while French was the language of the state. When it returned there was no authority to guide it: “No language Academy was established, no authority for oversight.”

Pronunciation moved on while spelling stayed. The words name and make once carried the vowel of father. The sound shifted, first towards the vowel in bed and then to the one we use now, but the spelling kept its original a.

Printing fixed the result. William Caxton set up England's first press in 1476, before dictionaries, style guides or copyeditors. He brought typesetters from the Continent, some of whom spoke little English, and their habits became the standard: hadde was shortened to had, and the gh in ghost is attributed to compositors trained in Flemish. Okrent also describes could, which was never pronounced with an l and was once written coude, being drawn towards would and should, which had one.

This is an essay by a linguist rather than a study, so it is best read as an explanation, not a measurement. Historians weigh these causes differently, and this post has not reviewed that debate.

Which spellings follow a pattern, and which have to be learnt?

Some English spellings follow patterns that can be taught, and some do not, and the national curriculum says both. It states that phonic knowledge should continue to underpin spelling after Key Stage 1. It adds that children increasingly need to understand how words are built from meaningful parts, and where words come from.

The curriculum gives a worked example. Knowing that medical and medicine are related can help a child with the /s/ sound spelt with a c in medicine. General principles for adding prefixes and suffixes help too.

It is equally plain about the limit. Some letter and sound matches in root words, the curriculum says, simply have to be learnt. Its common exception words contain matches not yet taught as widely applicable, or that apply in very few words suitable for the age group. A child who finds those words hard has not necessarily missed a rule.

Reading helps too. The same appendix says children can absorb accurate spellings through reading. For a practice method that asks a child to recall the word, see look, cover, write, check.

What can a parent do with this?

A parent can use this to set expectations and choose where to put attention. None of what follows is a method with proven results. It is reasoning from the sources above rather than a finding from any of them.

  • Expect some words to keep going wrong. If the sound does not settle the spelling, a child will need to meet the word more than once, on more than one day. Our page on how spelling sticks explains the thinking behind that.
  • Find the tricky part of the word and say it. When a child can name the one place where the sound and the letters disagree, the word stops being a long string of letters and becomes a short problem.
  • Link words that share a root. The curriculum's medical and medicine example suggests that talking about related words, and what they mean, gives a child something to hold on to besides sound.

Is a spelling that sounds right a bad sign?

A spelling that sounds right is not a bad sign, and the national curriculum treats it as a stage. The Year 2 notes say children's attempts should be phonically plausible, even if not always correct. The Year 1 notes add that misspellings of taught words should be corrected.

By the end of Key Stage 2, the curriculum expects pupils to spell most taught words accurately, and untaught words using what they have learnt. How a school applies this varies, and your child's teacher can say what they are working on.

FAQ

Why can my child read a word but not spell it?

The national curriculum says most people read words more accurately than they spell them. Once a child knows more than one spelling for a sound, choosing the right one depends on deliberate learning or on absorbing words through reading.

Is English spelling harder than other languages?

For the first stage of learning to read, one 2003 study found that development in English was more than twice as slow as in the most regular European writing systems it tested. That study measured reading in the first school year and did not measure spelling.

Do spelling rules help?

Some do. The national curriculum says that how words are built and where they come from help children spell correctly, and gives medical and medicine as an example. It also says that some spellings in root words simply have to be learnt, so rules do not cover everything.

Does reading more help spelling?

The national curriculum says children can absorb accurate spellings through reading. It does not say how much reading is needed, and it treats reading as one route alongside deliberate learning of words.

Is it a problem if my child spells a word the way it sounds?

Not in itself. The Year 2 notes in the national curriculum say children's attempts should be phonically plausible, even if not always correct. Words that have been taught should still be corrected, and your child's teacher can say what the school expects.

If you would like a short daily way to practise the words your child brings home, you can find Spelling Nest here, built by a teacher and parent.

Sources

Practice that actually happens.

Add this week's list, hand over the tablet, and see what has stuck before the test rather than after it. Alongside writing the words out by hand, not instead of it.

Open Spelling Nest