"Can ghoti really be pronounced fish? Why is short in glove and love, but long in rove and cove? Why do English words carry such extra baggage as the silent in doubt and the silent in knee? Addressing these and many other questions about letters and the sounds they make, this volume provides a comprehensive analysis of American English spelling and pronunciation. Venezky illuminates the fully functional system underlying what can at times be a bewildering array of exceptions, focusing on the basic units that serve to signal word form or pronunciation, where these units can occur within words, and how they relate to sound. This authoritative book affords new insight into the teaching of reading and the acquisition and processing of spelling-sound relationships."--BOOK JACKET.