Jj is for Jottings 128. Hard and Soft ‘C’ and ‘G’.
The great thing about spelling rules – such as the bossy ‘e’ rule – is that, once you learn a particular rule, you can read (and hopefully spell) many different words. In other words, rules give you lots of bang for your buck. When dealing with hard and soft ‘c’ and ‘g’, we teach the hard sound first as part of basic sound-letter links, and introduce the soft sounds a little later.
WHAT IS A HARD AND SOFT ‘C’?
A hard ‘c’ sounds like /k/ in “call”.
A soft ‘c’ sounds like /s/ in “cent”.
(Remember that the slashes / / mean that we pronounce the sound; ‘c‘ or c means to say the letter name. I think I may have done both at some point. Certainly it is underlined in Aa is for Alpacas.)
WHAT IS A HARD AND SOFT ‘G’?
A hard ‘g’ sounds like /g/ in “goat”.
A soft ‘g’ sounds like /j/ in “giraffe”. (The real way to represent the soft ‘g’ in the International Phonetic Alphabet is /dʒ/. For an explanation, see here. /j/ is actually the sound made at the beginning of “yes”, but it would be easier if I just type /j/ for the soft sound.
The soft ‘g’ sounds like the beginning of the word “jam”, so there is much confusion between ‘g’ and ‘j’ when learning sound-letter links. This is compounded by the fact that the letter names both have the soft /j/ in them: “jee” (‘g’) and “jay” (‘j’). You really wonder how this came about. Did somebody set out to deliberately confuse people, or is it just the way speech and language evolved? Still, it’s all good brain stimulation!
Hard and soft ‘c’ and ‘g’: it is a hard ‘g’ in “grass”, but the grass itself is soft.
THE SPELLING RULE.
For ‘c’: the sound is usually soft – /s/ – when followed by ‘e’, ‘i’ or ‘y’. If it is followed by other letters, it usually stands for the hard /k/. Remember that it can be followed by other consonant sounds, not just vowels, eg. cr, cl.
For ‘g’: the sound is usually soft – /j/ – when followed by ‘e’, ‘i’ or ‘y’. If it is followed by other letters, it usually stands for the hard /g/. Remember that it can be followed by other consonant sounds, not just vowels, eg. gr, gl.
As you can see, the rule is exactly the same for both ‘c’ and ‘g’. Note that the rule says “usually soft” – you can bet there’ll be exceptions in English. And there are many exceptions where ‘g’ is concerned: get, gift, girl, and so on. According to the rule, these words should use the soft /j/ sound, but they don’t. So, when teaching/practising the rule, it is probably good to concentrate more on the ‘c’ to cement (soft ‘c’!) it in.
A Word of Warning.
It is always best to use a picture as a peg to hang each sound on, which is the whole point of teaching sound-letter links using an alphabet book. Obviously in Aa is for Alpacas I applied the rule correctly (‘c’ is for “camel” and ‘g’ is for “gumboot”). In contrast, many other alphabet books confuse children. How many times have we seen “g’ is for “giraffe” in an alphabet book? We need to teach the hard sound first. But you can use “giraffe” for the “hook picture” when teaching the soft sound.
PRACTISING THE HARD AND SOFT ‘C’.
- Real Words.
You can make up a quick list of real words with ‘c’ in them and have the child read each word, and write the correct symbol that stands for the sound of each word, /k/ or /s/. Examples: cow, dance, picnic, doctor, centre, silence, decorate, force, cellar, actor, circus.
- Nonsense Words.
I am adhering to my principle that if you can read nonsense words, you really know the rule. So have the child do exactly the same as above with these words:
Cont cilter cime cag cint cume coge cere caik cetch curmin coafer curtig coalind caffent cipnit cotby ciggen culty
Use shorter words for less experienced readers.
PRACTISING THE HARD AND SOFT ‘G’.
- Real Words.
Once again, choose any real words with ‘g’ in them (except ‘ng’, ‘igh’ or ‘ough’ where the ‘g’ is silent). Have the child read each word, and write the correct symbol that stands for the sound of each word,/g/ or /j/. Examples: tiger, message, gas, dog, package, guitar, began, change, golf, dangerous.
- Nonsense Words.
Examples: goshment, gorpone, frooge, gypswot, ginpan, gufeme, garsweld, congent, gomble, sontage.
It was quite difficult to think up nonsense words which were not ambiguous for ‘g’.
Once children know the rule, they can try the sound both ways if they are unsure, and see which makes a real word. Knowing the rules really helps reading.
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