The many spelling patterns of the letter a:

Long a sound:

cake                           
name
rage
behave
rain
stay
tater
tomato (syllable ma)
maple (syllable ma)

What about?   sleigh, papa, have, garage

Short a sound:

cat                             
mast
manner

What about?    was, saw, want, what, many

R-controlled a sound:

car                                      
argue
barge

What about?    borrow

al(l) a sound:

ball                                   
palm
sprawl
always
almond

What about?    alert, mallet

ä sound (same as short o)

father
want
papa
garage

Schwa sound

camera
apparent
manipulation
garage

Now you see why at the within word pattern stage, a student is not spelling by sound alone. At this stage of development visual arrangements of letters (patterns) must be learned and matched to specific words.