We teach children to sound out words when they read and to sound out words when they spell.
Does that really work all the time? Actually, many words are not exactly spelled as they are pronounced.
Find out about the schwa sound and how to teach children to spell multisyllabic words. Thanks to Susan Godsland of www.dyslexics.org.uk for flagging up this article by John Walker from the Literacy Blog:
http://literacyblog.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/dreaded-schwa.html