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1. A Word Study Investigation. 2. It all started with a great question from Ace Detective Mubarak. <com e >. Why is there an <e> at the end of the word <come>?. As an Ace Word Detective with credentials in Real Spelling, Mubarak knew it must be there for a reason!. 3. <com e >.
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1 A Word Study Investigation
2 It all started with a great question from Ace Detective Mubarak <come> Why is there an <e> at the end of the word <come>?
As an Ace Word Detective with credentials in Real Spelling, Mubarak knew it must be there for a reason! 3 <come> Hmm…What job is that <e> doing?
He considered some of the purposes of single, silent, <e> 4 • <come> To show that the vowel before it is ‘long’? To prevent a word from ending in <v>?
Knowing that there must be a reason he approached Ms Fiona 5 That’s a great question Mubarak! And guess what? She didn’t know the answer!
She went to some fellow word detectives… 6 And together they puzzled over Mubarak’s great question.
They had learned that when investigating any word it is useful to ask 4 questions. 7 • What does the word mean? • How is it built? • What other related words can you think of? • What are the sounds that matter?
Here are the answers they came to… 8 • What does the word mean? To move towards. <come>
9 <come> 2.How is it built? They couldn’t identify any prefixes or suffixes so therefore they had to conclude <come> is a base word.
<come> 10 3. What other related words can you think of? • <came>, <some> and <same> • Origin is Old English and it was originally spelt <cum> • past tense of <come> is <came> • They wondered… • Is there a link to <some>, <same>? • <some> was originally spelt <sum> • Could the spelling <some> have been developed to avoid confusion with <sum>? • Is there a homophone for <come>? Yes - <cum> meaning ‘together with’ – like kitchen-cum-dining room.
<come> 11 4. What are the sounds that matter? • The phonemes in <come> are: / k / /ʌ/ / m / The graphemes are: <c> <o> <m> <e> This made sense … because…but
We had reached the limit of our understanding. 12 • It was time to call in the reinforcements… • We contacted Real Spellers worldwide via the Real Spellers Forum
Here’s what they told us… 13 The reason for the use of <o>: 1. to avoid confusion with <cum> 2. because in old script it was hard to differentiate the letters <u> and <m> It would have looked like this… Since <o> and <u> have a job share arrangement it made sense to spell the word <com>
And now… the answer to Mubarak’s original question… 14 • The reasons for the addition of the <e>: • To avoid confusion with a new English prefix <com-> - as in <combine>, <compose>. • To show a connection to the word <came> - which is the past tense of <come>
As Real Spellers well know - letters have several functions. Only one of which is to represent sounds or phonemes. 15 • One job that letters can do is to show links of meaning between words. • Do you know any other examples?
Letters showing connections of meaning. 16 • Words that have connections of meaning also have connections of spelling. Two • twenty, twelve, twin Talk • tale, told People population
Thanks to Mubarak Real Spellers worldwide are now talking about the great work that is going on at RVIS! 17 Fiona this is so wonderful Learning from a Grade 2 question I have learned so much just by following their hard work. I have posted her email to me at this link on Real Spellers so that I can share the brilliance of what is going on at her school The question posed by your grade 2 student Is a wonderful inspiration as I prepare for work this morning. Please tell him that a teacher in Tennessee, USA has been scratching his head over it for hours.