Understanding the linguistic rules and phonic principles of English spelling is the key to success with spelling. This reference book explains the spelling system of the English language and how it has developed. It includes generalisations for the phonic spelling of sounds and words, explains the rules for syllable division, rules of affixing and plurals. This book is particularly useful for students with an implicit processing difficulty.

This work is based on the Teaching Reading Through Spelling Programme developed between 1983 and 1987 at the Kingston Reading Centre by Lucy Cowdery and her colleagues. TRTS is a multi-sensory remedial programme for teaching reading, spelling and cursive writing and is used to train teachers of dyslexic pupils.