Why do so many children have problems with spelling? The most obvious reason is that English is such a difficult language to master. Historical influences have left English an opaque alphabet, with several ways of spelling the same sound.

Secondly, most of our spelling rules have exceptions; for example, the famous 'i before e' only works about 53 per cent of the time. Thirdly, my teaching experiences, ranging from children in nursery to adults at degree level, all have a familiar trait. I have found, without exception, that learners who are struggling with spelling are unable to:

• hear and identify the sounds of the English language in spoken words
• read each sound out of context
• write the sounds down when called out individually.

In short, they don't own a working knowledge of all 40-plus sounds in the English language.

In the beginning the sounds are more important than the names. Although knowing the alphabet is a useful tool for looking words up in a dictionary, it does not help you to blend or segment - the crucial steps that no child should be leaving Reception without. Unfortunately, children are not only leaving Reception, but even entering secondary education without being able to understand when you would use 'ai' instead of 'ay', or that there is an 'ai' sound at all.

I despair about official guidelines on 'guessing strategies' when we should be replacing the need for guessing with a structured knowledge of how the language works. Jolly Phonics systematically teaches 42 sounds, one a day, over about nine weeks. This enables children to build blending and segmenting skills, and start to explore some of the more irregular words.

The 42 sounds are the foundation to literacy: children who can hear, recognise in print and correctly write these sounds are on their way. In fact, once these sounds are taught (with blending for reading and segmenting for writing along the way), the NLS phonics teaching becomes a little redundant - taking three years to do what you have achieved in the first term. The whole point is to enable the children to 'own' all 42 sounds. There is no point in 'knowing' sounds and never actually being called upon to 'use' that knowledge in a letter to Santa or a list of ingredients for a cake. Owning that information empowers children to have a go at spelling words relevant to their knowledge; encourages them to learn more sounds, read and spell more words and become empowered by their own success.

As teachers we need to question current methods and rely on our instincts a little more. Whatever age student I find myself with, I begin by assessing them on the three points mentioned above. Can they hear and identify, read and spell all 42 sounds? If they can't, I teach them how to. Everything else is irrelevant until these skills are in play.

In an ideal situation this is done in the Reception year, but for any age group the principles remain the same. In a key stage 1 class, I first establish what sounds the children already own, by asking if they can the hear 'ai' in pain, recognise the 'oa' written on a card or are able to write regular words like pin, chat or shampoo, by listening for sounds. If they can't, I start by teaching four to six sounds a week, including blending skills from the beginning. Each sound is introduced with an interactive story and action, which serves as a memory trigger. I bring in lollipops to teach 'l', squeeze the air out of a giant inflatable fish for 'f' and dress up as my dear old, hard-of-hearing granny who says 'ai' every time you ask her a question.

Owning 42 sounds, combined with reasons to write and consistent expectations, are the main tools in preventing literacy failure. However, I rarely meet a class of any age who can hear, read and write 42 sounds. Trying to get your head around swapping 'i' for 'y' before adding a vowel suffix, doubling the final consonant after a short vowel sound, and all of the exceptions to these 'rules' is difficult enough. Doing so in key stage 2 without the basics you should have learned and owned back in key stage 1 is like trying to perform brain surgery with only a rudimentary knowledge of the tools and no real idea how they are used.

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