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Learning to read before spelling became standardized

In the 16th and 17th Centuries, English spelling had yet to become completely standardized, but it was not a free-for-all. To take one example, the word ‘unless’ might have been spelled unless, onless, unles, onles, unlesse, onlesse, onelesse onnles….etc. There are options, but they are bounded ones.

The same book might well have three or four different spellings of even the most common words. This meant that readers must have taken a sound-based approach to reading, because the whole word could differ so much and so often. An outline of a word would be useless, and even learning a whole word would be unhelpful: the ability to break the word down, to understand the different spelling options for individual sounds, is crucial in recognizing unles and onelesse as the same word.

So, how did they learn?