To support conventional spelling for a student who wrote 'SEP' for 'ship,' which phonics generalization should the teacher provide using words the child already knows?

To support conventional spelling for a student who wrote 'SEP' for 'ship,' which phonics generalization should the teacher provide using words the child already knows?

• A. Teach the consonant digraph 'sh'
• B. Teach the vowel digraph 'ea'
• C. Teach the digraph 'ph'
• D. Teach the digraph 'ck'

Answer: (A)

Consonant digraphs map a single sound to two letters. The initial sound in ship is the /ʃ/ sound, which is written with the digraph "sh," not with a single letter or other letter pair. Using words the child already knows that contain "sh" helps show that this particular sound is consistently spelled with sh across familiar vocabulary, reinforcing the pattern. When spelling ship, the student would replace the /ʃ/ with sh, keep the vowel sound as i, and the final sound as p—giving sh-i-p. The other options don’t match the /ʃ/ sound: the vowel pair ea can represent vowels but not the /ʃ/ sound here; the digraph ph typically stands for /f/; and ck generally represents /k/ after a short vowel.

Consonant digraphs map a single sound to two letters. The initial sound in ship is the /ʃ/ sound, which is written with the digraph "sh," not with a single letter or other letter pair. Using words the child already knows that contain "sh" helps show that this particular sound is consistently spelled with sh across familiar vocabulary, reinforcing the pattern. When spelling ship, the student would replace the /ʃ/ with sh, keep the vowel sound as i, and the final sound as p—giving sh-i-p.

The other options don’t match the /ʃ/ sound: the vowel pair ea can represent vowels but not the /ʃ/ sound here; the digraph ph typically stands for /f/; and ck generally represents /k/ after a short vowel.