What happens when two graphemes represent the same phoneme, such as ch and tch?

English often has more than one grapheme that can represent the same phoneme. For example, both ch and tch can represent the phoneme /tʃ/.

If two graphemes representing the same phoneme appear as response options on the same screen in ReadingDoctor® Online, the student can select either one and it will be accepted as correct.

In this type of activity, the program is testing whether the student recognises which graphemes can represent the target phoneme. It is not asking the student to decide which spelling would be correct in a particular word.

Learning when to use ch versus tch in spelling is a separate orthographic skill that depends on the structure and spelling conventions of individual words.