What are Letter-Sound Correspondences?
Most of the phonemes (sounds) in English can be spelled more than one way. For example, the sound can be spelled a bunch of different ways:
This isn't just phonemes to spellings! A lot of the graphemes (letters, digraphs, trigraphs, etc.) can be used to represent more than one phoneme. For example, the letter ‘y’ can represent several sounds. Click the buttons to hear the differences.
(And these don't even include when 'y' is part of a vowel digraph like 'ay' or 'oy'!)
Correspondences Bridge Sounds and Spellings
A correspondence is unique! It is the pairing of a single phoneme with a single grapheme. When the letter 'y' is used to spell the /ee/ sound in "candy", and it is also used to spell the sound /ee/ in "funny", this is the same correspondence being used.
| 's' | 'x' | 'c' | 'z' | 'k' | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| cat | kid | ||||
| sit | city | ||||
| was | xylophone | zoo |
We use correspondences throughout Phonics & Stuff. Whenever you're selecting letter options in our games, they are actually correspondences! By making this distinction, we can ensure that when you hear a sound and see a spelling, they are correct.