In English, phonograms can make one, two, three, four, five, or even six sounds.

Many people suggest that English spelling should be reformed, one phonogram should represent only one sound.

If we change English spelling so that one phonogram = one sound, words with related meanings would no longer share a spelling.

Here are just a few of the endless examples.

• heal - health
• athlete - athletic
• office - official
• inventor - inventory

Teach that English spelling is a balance of sound and meaning.

When a sound has only one spelling, it is easy to spell. In English many sounds have more than one way to spell them. The sound /oi/ may be spelled oi or oy. The long ē sound has ten ways to spell it!

Some people suggest that each sound should have only one way to spell it.

Changing English spelling so that every sound had only one spelling would have some unintended consequences.

First, two sentences can sound the same but have different meanings because writing is more specific than spoken language:

I bought a pair.

I bought a pear.

Second, spelling includes information about culture, word origin, and history. All of this would be lost.

Teach that English spelling is morpho-phonemic — a balance of units of meaning and sounds.