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72 Easy-To-Read letters and letter-combinations with sample words and their speech sounds
Our "speech-sounds" are very much like "phonemes" -- but not quite the same. The word phoneme has very technical meanings that do not cover our definition of speech-sounds. Most linguists wold agree that /or/ and /ch/ are phonemes, but they might not agree that /u.l.ee/ is a phoneme. For that reason we do not use the word phoneme -- except in very specific circumstances. We claim that /u.l.ee/ has every right to be considered the same kind of speech-sound as /or/ or /ch/. All three are simply speech-sounds that are represented by a certain specific pattern of alphabetic letters.
| letters | sample words | speech-sounds |
| "a" | bat |
/a/ |
| "a" (at the end of a word) | data, hula, Santa, Africa, Antarctica, America | /u/ |
| "ai" & "ay" | aid, brain, clay, Sunday, way | /aa/ |
| "air" & "aer" | air, hair, pair | /air/ |
| all, ball, call, hall, mall | /all/ | |
| "ally" (at the end of any word) | normally, orally, verbally | /u.l.ee/ |
| "ar" | are, bar, card, farm, start | /ar/ |
| "au" & "aw" | fault, paws, pause, saw | /aw/ |
| "b" | bat | /b/ |
| "c" | cat | /c/ |
| "ch" | batch, catch, chat, chart, chicken | /ch/ |
| "d" | dog | /d/ |
| "e" (short "e") | bet | /e/ |
"e" (at the end of a word) |
are, give, love, were | silent |
| see, sea, speech, team | /ee/ | |
| "ear" | ear, fear, gear, nearest, yearling | /ear/ |
| "ed" (at the end of a word) | armed, barked, slapped, mopped | "e" is silent |
| "er", "ir", "ur" | burped, her, fur, sur, stir | /ur/ |
| "f" | fat | /f/ |
| "g" | get | /g/ |
| "h" | hot | /h/ |
| "i" (short "i" ) | bit | /i/ |
| "ice" | ice, ice-cream, nice, twice | /ice/ |
| "ie" | lie, pie, cried, Fries | /ii/ |
| "ine" | finest, mine, nine, whine, wine | /ine/ |
| "ing" | king, sing, spring, swing, thing, twinkling | /ing/ |
| "ink" | blink, kink, pink, stink, nkling | /ink/ |
| "j" | job | /j/ |
| "k" | kick | /k/ |
| "kn" | knack, knead, knee, knit, knuckle | /n/ |
| 'l" | lip | /l/ |
| "le" (at the end of a word) | bottle, dawdle, doodle, wrinkle, giggle, rattle | /u.l/ |
| "m" | mom | /m/ |
| "n" | no | /n/ |
| "o" short "o" | dot | /o/ |
| "o" (at the end of a word) | gecko, go, hello, limo, no, no-no, so, yo-yo | /oo/ |
| "oa" & "oe" | boat, coat, coax, doem poem, toast, toe | /oo/ |
| "oi" & "oy" | boil, boy, coins, oil, spoiled, toilet, toys | /oy/ |
| "oo" & "ue" | blue, cool, cruel, glued, too, true, zoo | /uu/ |
| "ook" | book, checkbook, cook, hook, look, rook, took, scrapbook | /uuh.k/ |
| "or" | born, Ford, gordo, gorilla, more, sort | /or/ |
| "ou" & "ow" | cow, how, brown, cloud, mouse, owl, proud | /ow/ |
| "p" | pet | /p/ |
| "qu" | equity, quill | /k.w/ |
| "r" | bring, rat | /r/ |
| "s" | sat, this | /s/ |
| "sh" | dish, fisherman, she, shout, splash, wish | /sh/ |
| "sky" | sky, skycap, skyed, skyhook, skyjack, skylark, skyline, skyway | /s.k.ii/ |
| "t" | tap | /t/ |
| "th" | bath, North, thick, thin (unvoiced) | /th/ |
| "thh" | that, the, them (voiced) | /thh/ |
| "u" (short "u") | but | /u/ |
| "ue" & "oo" | blue, cool, cruel, glued, too, true, zoo | /uu/ |
| "v" | vest | /v/ |
| "w" | west | /w/ |
| "wh" | what, when, where, who, why | /w/ |
| "wr" | wrecked, wrench, wring, wrist, wrong | /r/ |
| "x" | box | /k.s/ |
| "y" (at the beginning of a word) | yet, yell, yesterday | /y/ |
| "y" (in the middle of a word) | abyss, hymn, myth, system | /i/ |
| "y" (at the end of a word) | badly, blurry, bumpy, bunny, sunny, yucky | /ee/ |
| "z" | zoo | /z/ |