© Lyn Stone 2019
Teaching the months of the year
The story of the months is all to do with the Romans. The Latin word calare, meaning
‘to call out’ forms the root of the word calendar. Every new moon was ‘called out’ in
Roman society and this marked the passing of the months.
The most ancient calendars had a 10 month cycle, up until AD45, when it was
reformed by adding two months in the middle, named after Julius Caesar and his
father Augustus. This was the first calendar not affected by the cycles of the moon,
but instead, an algorithm based on a 365 day cycle with a leap year every four years.
The Julian calendar also played havoc with the last four months, which had been
named according to their order, i.e. September was the seventh month, October the
eighth and so on. With the insertion of July and August, this was no longer true. So
December is now the twelfth month, even though it has the dec-, meaning the number
10, root that we see in decade and decathlon.
One more reform in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII adjusted the algorithm slightly so
that there wasn’t a 10 day accumulated drift any more. This brought what is known as
the Gregorian calendar back into line with equinoxes, which we all appreciate. It did
mess a little bit with calculating the date of Easter, but by the 20th century, most
countries had adopted it.
The names of the months are charming and are explained below, along with some tips
on remembering the spelling of each month.
January: After the Roman god of doors and gates, Janus (where we get janitor from).
The first month of the year is the doorway into the new.
Spelling tip: Syllable 1 is the strong syllable (i.e. the one with most emphasis), so it’s
easy to sound out. Syllable 2, however, sometimes collapses so it can’t always be
heard in speech. That’s why we have to say it very clearly for spelling. Syllables 3
and 4 form the suffix –ary, which we also see in primary, secondary and ordinary.
February: This was the month of purification in Roman society, after all the
celebration in the previous months. We also get febrile and fever from this root, as
fevers were said to purify the system.
Spelling tip: This is a hard month to spell, but if you use January as a base, it’s easier
than it first seems. If you take a look at Fig 27.1, the last four boxes in January and
February are shaded in the same way because of their similarity. The only difference
is that there is an extra letter in the fourth box in February. The first syllable is easy to
sound out, being the strong syllable. Syllables 2 and 3 are just like January, except
that in syllable 2, a sneaky <r> is there at the start. To remember it, just imagine being
outside in the cold weather in Febrrrrrrruary!
March: Named after Mars, the Roman war god. So any Tuesday in March has a lot of
war gods associated with it.
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© Lyn Stone 2019
Spelling tip: Not a lot to say here except that the <ar> and the <ch> letters occupy one
box per combination because the first is a Wacky R and the second is a digraph.
April: Such a lovely word, but the origin is lost in the sands of time. Some guess that
it may be from Aphrodite, the goddess of love and female beauty, but no one really
knows.
Spelling tip: The vowel in syllable 2 is hard to hear, so it has to be emphasized when
saying it for spelling.
May: More speculation about the origin of this word abounds. Scholars say it was
possibly to do with Maia, the Roman earth goddess and wife of Vulcan (who has a lot
to do with volcanoes), but again, no one is entirely sure.
Spelling tip: May has to be the easiest word in the calendar (provided you have taught
<ay>, which you should have by now if you’re requiring children to spell the months
of the year).
June: Named after Juno, the sister and wife of Jupiter (don’t ask) and goddess of
adult women and marriage. The root probably stems from juwen, meaning ‘young’,
where we also get juvenile.
Spelling tip: Another fairly straightforward word, provided Final Silent E is known. It
is marked on the calendar as making the <u> say its name.
July: Though it was as a result of Julius Caesar’s reign, the month of July was only
named for him after his death and deification. It had been known as Quintilis, ‘the
fifth month’ prior to that.
Spelling tip: Syllable 1 has the same structure as syllable 1 in June, making those
words easier to learn by association. The second syllable is the strong syllable and so
is easy to sound and spell.
August: Julius Caesar’s father, Augustus, was honoured by renaming the sixth month,
Sextilis, after him. The Romans also tried to combat the awkwardness of the mismatch
between order and name of the months by renaming September Germanicus and
October Domitian, but for reasons lost to us, September and October proved
preferable and remain to this day.
Spelling tip:
The <au> digraph forms the first syllable and is the <au> you may not use at the end
of a word, so it makes sense to use this digraph here. You cannot hear the vowel in
the second syllable, because it is an unaccented syllable, so you have to use other
means to store and retrieve that pattern. Here’s a useful method:
Statistically speaking, when you can’t hear the vowel sound in a syllable, the most
common representation of that vowel is the letter <a> or <e>. It is less likely to be
<i>, even less likely to be <o> and at the very bottom of the scale of likelihood, <u>.
It’s handy to remember this when helping children spell vowels in unaccented
syllables. They will be correct more often if they choose <a> or <e>. However, the
months are a bit different. Because they’re heavily influenced by Latin, they have an
uncommonly large distribution of the letter <u>. I have my students colour in all
instances of <u>, including digraphs, just as a memory aid.
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E: linguist@internode.on.net
© Lyn Stone 2019
September: Though sept- means ‘seven’, this poor month was bumped up two spots
and is now the ninth month.
Spelling tip: This month and its three remaining brothers are all spelled with the same
last three letters, and in fact, the months of September, and November December have
two identical syllables at the end.
October: Oct- meaning ‘eight’ of course.
November: Nov- meaning ‘nine’.
December: Dec- meaning ‘ten’.
Fig 1 shows how to mark the unusual parts of these words. Fig 2 is a tally sheet that
students can use to count the number of vowels in each month. The months are
unusual, in that the least common vowel, <u>, is present more often than in general
prose. See Spelling for Life for more on vowel frequency.
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A: 28 Swansea Grove, Mornington, VIC 3931 Australia
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E: linguist@internode.on.net
© Lyn Stone 2019
J
a
n
u
a
r
y
F
e
b
(r)u
a
r
y
M
ar
ch
A
p
r
i
l
M
ay
J
u
n
e
J
u
l
y
Au
g
u
s
t
S
e
p
t
e
m
b
O
c
t
o
b
er
N
o
v
e
m
b
er
D
e
c
e
m
b
er
Fig 1 Months of the year spelling chart
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E: linguist@internode.on.net
er
© Lyn Stone 2019
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
a
iiii
i
e
iiii
iiii
i
i
i
o
iii
Months of the year vowel tally sheet
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A: 28 Swansea Grove, Mornington, VIC 3931 Australia
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E: linguist@internode.on.net
u
iiii
i