She pointed at the trunk of the tree and explained,
“The trunk stands for a sound, like the sound /ae/
as in cake. The branches stand for the spellings for
that sound. There’s one branch for words with the
‘a_e’ spelling like flame and stake. There’s one branch
for words that have the ‘ay’ spelling like play and
stay. There’s one branch for words that have the ‘ai’
spelling like pain and train. And so on. Get it?”
“Got it .”A spelling tree for /ae/