tch match catch itch witch

This drawing gives us a peek at life in the 1400-1500s.
About 400 years later, a Scotsman designed a safe matchstick.
His friends used a slang word for the new match: a Lucifer.

Letter t melts into ch so that t is nearly silent: itch, twitch. 

Tell your child this is a rhyming family. Then tell your child the first word: batch. Ask your child to point to each word as you read, then let your child try each word: 

batch      hatch     match     snatch

catch      latch       patch      scratch

Important word watch is not listed with this rhyming family because watch has a slightly different a sound; a as in wall. 

Let's try:

itch        hitch      witch     switch

ditch      pitch     snitch     twitch

One of our meanings for match is a narrow wooden stick dipped in sulfur for igniting a flame, but the ancient people thought of maache as the candle's wick.

When a candlewick is not aflame, it can lean over and dangle. Long ago, someone imagined the dangling wick had the look of a drippy nose.  The candlewick came to be known by the same word as a drippy nose, maache.

An ancient word from India, meug, meaning slippery and slimy, had been picked up by the Greeks and Romans. They changed meug to myxa and mucus.  The Old English changed meug to maache; the Old French, meiche.

As you see, in ancient times, match did not have a letter t.  I have not found a good explanation for how we ended up with t in match, or the spelling pattern: tch.

Possibly the letter x which says ks in the Greek word, myxa (say mi k sa) may have sounded a bit like letter t to an ancient scribe somewhere. Not wanting to be accused of misspelling the word, he may have stuck in a letter t before the ch.

About the drawing: A Belgium man, Simon Bening (1483-1561) drew miniature pictures which he colored with brilliant pigments,often adding details in gold. They were hand-painted on pages about 5 1/2 inches by 4 inches in size; then bond together in a book. 

In addition to fabulous tiny pictures, the books included the Catholic prayers one should be sure to say each day. Only the very wealthy and royal families could afford to buy one of Simon Bening's books. This picture is from The book of Hours (Da Costa Hours). The pages, called leaves, are on display at the Morgan Pierpont Library in New York City. 

I now use eBay as my website. Search Instant Reading Help all my books will pop up for you. You can extend your child's reading and comprehension skills with my books.   All books put the tricky phonics in bold print in the words of the stories, so that your child becomes instant with the sounds of the tricky teams. 

About the drawing: A Belgium man, Simon Bening (1483-1561) drew miniature pictures which he colored with brilliant pigments,often adding details in gold. They were hand painted on pages about 5 1/2 inches by 4 inches in size; then bond together in a book. 

Have fun reading with your child. Thank you, Mary Maisner