Whenever I get talking to a teacher about spelling, I offer them my brilliant idea that every school should, in the first couple of weeks of the first term, have a ‘-tion Day’ when each first-year student and teacher will adopt a useful word ending in -tion (that spelling only). By the end of the day they will know what it means, how to say it naturally, say it for spelling, and, of course, spell it accurately.
I used to end that conversation by saying something like, ‘I know there are other ways to spell the /shun/ (or /zhun/) ending, but <tion> is by far the most common.’ I’d been making that assertion based on experience rather than research so thought I’d dig a little deeper to back up my claims.
If you like finding word patterns, then you probably know thefreedictionary.com. I usually get there by searching for something like ‘words ending in’ or ‘words starting’. This time I got a huge list and scooped off just over 700 words I thought would be the most common, put them in alphabetical order and sorted them by <tion>, <cian>, <ssion>, <cion> and <sion>.
As always, memory is required for spelling but we can also play the odds a little.
<tion>
According to my list, 83% of the time, when you hear /shun/ or /zhun/, the spelling is <tion>. On that basis, you don’t really have to do much sorting and looking for patterns unless you really want to and your students find it helpful.
- A trustworthy pattern is, if you hear /ayshun/ then write <ation>. I’ve never met an exception.
- Roots that end <t> tend to have the <tion> spelling: attract/attraction etc fit the pattern but lots of roots that don’t end in <t> also add <tion>.
- A more advanced pattern: absorb/absorption, subscribe/subscription, describe/description all reflect a shift in pronunciation from /b/ to /p/.
- Your more confident spellers might enjoy going deeper through word study or by looking at phonetics and pronunciation. For unconfident spellers, that kind of study is likely to be a barrier to learning.
Instead of trying to sort the 83% spelt <tion>, let’s look at the remaining 17% – around 120 words with their various spelling options. I’ve left some words with ‘no obvious (to me) pattern’. A pdf of the full list is linked at the bottom of the page.
<cian>
- These words are jobs music/musician, optic/optician – even more fun if you’re working with someone called Ian.
<ssion>
- These words largely have roots that end <ss> impress/impression and a few that end <mit> admit/admission, remit/remission.
<cion>
- There are only two (2!) common words with this spelling: suspicion and coercion. So learn those two words and exclude <cion> from the list of options.
<sion>
These words require more memory as there are more patterns to consider. If you’re using That Spelling Thing, your students will love suggesting how best to remember these.
- Listening for /zhun/ rather than /shun/ helps.
- If the verb is spelt with a split digraph plus <d> then it’s <sion>. Lots are accounted for with this pattern. collide/collision, deride/derision, decide/decision,
- If the word ends in <d> by itself, the ending will sound like /shun/. apprehend/apprehension, extend/extension – but there are lots of deadends: offend, defend, amend, etc.
- Roots ending <vert> invert/inversion, divert/diversion, revert/reversion etc. It might be easier just to hang all those words on one familiar one: version.
- Likewise, any word ending <vision>: revision, television
- A handful of roots ending with /r/ or /l/ with no vowel added. adhere/adhesion (as opposed to adore/adoration), compel/compulsion
- Roots ending with the sounds /s/ or /z/ when no vowel is added. precise/precision, transfuse/transfusion.
- ‘No vowel added’ means we have confuse/confusion (no vowel added) but accuse/accusation (vowel added).