FRIDAY FRIENDS — MAKING CONNECTIONS

All words have bits that are easily decoded using initial sounds, but then there come the silent letters, which make words difficult to sound out. I call these letters the dodgy bit. Dodgy words are everywhere until we help students realise that there is a method to the madness.

Early instruction should always focus on initial sounds to kick-start effective decoding and first spelling. This creates a firm foundation for all other learning, but as we move past initial sound words, we have to deal with the dodgy bits in a way that helps students make links, understand why the silent letters are there and dig deeper than just what does that sound represent? When we help students make connections, learning sticks and solid spelling habits take root, setting the stage for literacy to bloom.

Friend is a frequently used word. The spelling of the word friend does not have a one-to-one correspondence that links speech sounds to letters, so it's the subject of many spelling errors. Many might call it irregular or tricky. What is <i> doing in the middle of all those initial sounds? If we treat <ie> as a spelling (grapheme) when sounding out the word, it will work for some, but for many, more information is needed to make the learning stick.

When we build families of words, we develop spelling skills by linking letters beyond speech sounds. This creates sticky links that make effective learning networks that students can draw on. When we link a word with a silent letter to a word that sounds the letter, this can act as a mnemonic. The word Friday does just this.  Not only does using words that show the silent letter help build knowledge, but it also serves as an anchor point for further learning because the words are linked. This also works so much better than the mnemonics floating around the web, talking about the act of frying a friend.

I fry my friend

F-R-I: "I fry my friend on Friday" E-N-D: "That was the end of him".

Friends will end if they are fried.

I fried my friend on Friday.

Using the word fry or even fried as a memory aid for the beginning of friend sets up a false logic that can confuse rather than teach. Friday friends, on the other hand, uses the same spelling and is an actual mnemonic device that will help.

The words Friday and friend start with the same three letters, but an obvious link isn’t apparent until we look deeper. The words Friday and friend share the same history and come from the same root. Friday is named after the Norse goddess of love, marriage, family and friends – Frigg. The words friend and Friday are linked through their shared history. Both words share the same Proto-Germanic root, which means ‘to love’ or ‘to hold dear’. This connection is why the letter <i> appears in the word friend. This silent letter links both words and is a historical connection to the Norse Goddess Frigg.

Not all letters represent speech sounds. Often letters represent meaning, preserve history and etymology, or can show how the word was once pronounced. There is always a reason why silent letters occur in words.

When we look at the history of the word friend, we can see that it had many spellings before the printing press stabilised spelling.  <friond> and <freond> were both common and said with two syllables sounding like /free’nd/. In phonics instruction, sounds and spellings are classified as regular or irregular without considering how the word was once pronounced and how this might relate to spelling.  We base the trickiness of many words on how we pronounce them right now. The word friend is now said as a one-syllable word with /e/ in the middle, making the <i> irregular, tricky or dodgy, as I would say to my students. If we only look at sounds and how we say them now, without looking back at the past, we miss out on an explanation that would help our students see that English spelling is not as chaotic as it might look on first glance.

The modern spelling of friend was common only after 1530, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, and the spelling <frend> disappeared only after 1630, but the pronunciation remained.

As The Real Spelling Toolbox points out, friend and Friday share the base <fri>, which can be a great starting point for spelling instruction. Through this base, we can see that spelling remains constant even when pronunciation changes. It’s often pronunciation changes that trip up many early readers.

When we take it back to the spelling and we highlight how structures remain constant regardless of the accent or dialect used to say the word, this helps smooth out the chaos and shows an easier path forward. Linking the words Friday and friend does showcase the silent letter <i> and helps students understand the link; however, a link is only as good as the information our students already hold. Not all students might understand Norse gods and goddesses. I always use picture books when I can to help develop the subject knowledge needed so they can connect the dots.

The Last Viking and The Viking Returns are perfect for introducing Vikings to a younger audience. 

I also love How to be a Viking by Cressida Cowell. Most of my students have watched the movie or TV show How to Train Your Dragon. Not so heavy on Viking history, but a great story to set the scene.

Building words and working through families of words is an excellent activity that builds spelling skills and effective decoding skills needed for fluent reading. This activity also creates links to meaning that will develop comprehension skills and vocabulary knowledge. In the clinic, we always build words together and look at the spelling and pronunciation changes that happen as words become longer. We also look at how words in the same family often vary in pronunciation.

Using cards as an instructional activity is often the movement students need to stay engaged and focused.  After this practical activity that involves lots of talk and scaffolded writing instruction, we use a premade matrix printable for repetition. Matrices are a fantastic scaffold to move on to the ‘we do’ and ‘you do’ parts of instruction. Scaffolded printables are also perfect for independent activities at home or in school.

Building on from one word creates space to work on decoding, spelling and sentence instruction. The discussion that happens as a family of words is built is a wonderful way to build vocabulary.

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Check out the Friday Friends resource pack here.

A printable resource that is perfect for the classroom, intervention and home use.

Includes

• Teaching notes

• Posters

• Games

• Quiz for decoding practice

• Missing word sentences to develop comprehension

• Word matrices and cards for word building so that students can build their own word families with your instruction.

• Word building game