Live Broadcast 27: Understanding the Spelling of ‘Rough’

Every English-language reader, dyslexic or not, is sooner or later faced with the challenge of getting a grip on the rules of spelling and what may seem like an even larger number of exceptions to the rules. Orthography – spelling and all the particulars of how letters and words are written – is a field of study in itself, so how can the “average” reader ever figure it out?

The folks over at Real Spelling seem, in fact, to have figured it out. A comprehensive resource for anyone who wants to understand the linguistic conventions of how English spelling really works, Real Spelling is a sort of multi-media encyclopedia of spelling. It’s not a program or a teaching approach, but a densely-packed reference. English spelling, the language experts at Real Spelling demonstrate, is “elegantly coherent and predictable.”

Melvin Ramsden, from Real Spelling, discussed the word rough and why it is spelled this way on our latest Live Broadcast. Watch the video below or Click here to download the presentation for this Live Broadcast in pdf format.