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The activities are now moving from observing chunks in words, or the onsets and
rimes, to identifying and manipulating individual letter sounds in words. In English there
are two different types of sounds; vowels and consonants.
VOWELS
Vowels are unobstructed sounds that allow us to project our voices. A good way
to demonstrate this to students is to have them place their hand an inch under their
chin and then say the letters a, e, i, o, u. Then have the students say the letters
b, k, t, p. In the first group of letters, their chin will hit their hand from their
jaw dropping because vowel sounds are unobstructed, meaning that nothing gets
in the way of the airflow. When saying the second set of letters, students chins
wont touch their hand because their jaw doesnt need to drop as far to pronounce
consonants. This is because consonants are obstructed sounds, meaning the
airflow is stopped by either a persons tongue, lips, or teeth (Fisher, J., 2016).
English has long and short vowels. A vowel is said to have a long sound when
the vowel sounds like its name. The short sounds of vowels are represented in
words in the table below. Vowels can even be silent or work in teams, depending
on the position of the vowel in the word and the letters around it, which is why
learning vowels in the context of the words in which they are found is very
important.
Long Vowels (name)
A - //
E - //
I - //
O - //
U - //
Long vowels say their name!
Minimal Pairs
o Minimal pairs are words that differ by a single phoneme such as (sheep /
ship), (sip / zip) (buzz / bus), [leaving] the learner to identify [which is
which] (Marrapodi, 2013, p. 11). Minimal pair exercises help develop
students ability to identify, differentiate, and reproduce new sounds by
focusing on sounds that are very similar, but slightly different (Marrapodi,
2015, p. 11). Students need to be able to hear minimal pairs often in order
to develop the auditory ability to distinguish between sounds. One activity
that could be done to practice minimal pairs is stand up, sit down.
Stand up, sit down is a game in which students focus to distinguish
between two specific sounds. The teacher assigns an action to two
different sounds and when students hear one sound in the word,
they stand up, when students hear the other sound in the word, they
sit down. For example, lets say students are trying to develop the
ability to hear the difference between the sounds r and l. The
teacher would tell students to sit down if he says a word with r in
it and to stand up if he says a word with l in it. Some examples
of minimal pairs with r and l sounds are: fry/fly, right/light,
list/wrist, road/load, laid/raid, late/rate, low/row. Its beneficial to
focus on two sounds at a time and then try to master them prior to
moving on to another challenging sound. This game should also
only be done with words that students are familiar with, such as
words from books or word families. Ensuring that the word is
coming from a familiar context is crucial, otherwise, students
wont place any meaning behind the word and it will simply
become a task of memorization.
Hand Motions
o Teaching a hand motion with each vowel can help students remember the
letter and the sound(s) it makes. If students use the hand motions
consistently, over time they will grow to associate the body motion with
the shape of the letter and also the sound they hear themselves saying.
Eventually they will no longer need to make the hand motions, as the
sounds will become automatic. Hand motions are a great way to get the
students using their full bodies when learning. Below are the hand
motions for each vowel. These motions will hopefully improve the
connections between students storage and retrieval process, improving
their letter-sound recall (Major, 2016).
Aa
Ee
Ii
Oo
Uu
CONSONANTS
Consonants are obstructed sounds and make up all the letters in the alphabet,
except for the five vowels. Students will initially get exposure to consonants
when looking at onsets and rimes as they work with beginning consonants in
word families.
To further make some of the consonant sounds more explicit, the teacher can
highlight multiple consonant sounds each day. They should do so in the context
of words from stories and themed units.
Personal successes: Consistently pointing a letter sound every time I see is one of
the best ways I have found students remember the various consonant sounds.
Over time students commit a consonant sound to memory through the constant
exposure and explicit presentation of all the words that begin with that consonant.
I also make a point to use as many of the same consonants as possible when
building words in word families so that way students are consistently exposed to
the same consonant sounds. Once students feel comfortable with those sounds, I
introduce new consonant sounds.
The following activities help highlight consonant sounds, as well as vowels
sounds, in words in an effort to further develop students phonemic awareness.
word apart into sounds they know, just as they do in this activity, until
they are able to sound the word out.
o Personal successes: I have done with activity after reading a story and
introducing a word family word wheel and students respond very well to
it. Students love that they get to stand up and move around. I also found
that when students get to the last sound of the word and have their hand on
their hips, they like to hit a pose while saying the last sound, which always
make them laugh. I also encourage them to choose an action to
demonstrate, if it applies, when they say the whole word. For example, if
a student just sounded out the word ran, I would encourage them to run
in place while saying ran, rather than simply moving their hands down
their sides while saying the word. The motion makes the word more
memorable. Once students were comfortable with this activity, I could
just write a few words from a story or word family on the board that
students were familiar with. I would then point to each letter in one of the
words as the students touched each body part and said the sound that letter
makes. This helped build students phonemic awareness even further, as
they could connect that the sound they were saying matched the letter I
was pointing to.
only have students listen for the sound at the beginning of words because
it helps them build word awareness. I make sure I read slowly, giving
students enough time to evaluate the first sound of the word I just read,
before I move into the next sound that starts the next word. Sometimes I
will simply read the story and let the students listen for words that start
with the sound we are focusing on that day. Other times I will pause after
a word every now and then and ask if the word starts with the sound we
are focusing on. Students at that point will either give me a thumbs up or
a thumbs down. This strategy helps familiarize students with sounds by
using words that they already have familiarity with and therefore can
associate meaning with.
three circles on a piece of paper. One cup or circle will be labeled b for
beginning sound in word, one will be labeled m for middle sound in
word, and the last one will be labeled e for end sound in word. The
students should then be given an object, such as an eraser or a rock. The
teacher will state a sound (not a letter) and a word that has that sound in it.
For example, the teacher might say s, sat. The students will then need
to identify where that sound is in the word; whether its at the beginning,
middle, or end, and then drop the rock or eraser into that cup or circle.
The sound is what matters, not the spelling or letter name. This game will
give students a chance to listen and identify the sounds that make up
words. Teachers should try to use a list of words from a thematic unit or
vocabulary the kids already know from a book. Initially when playing this
game, teachers might want to only use sounds that are at the beginning or
end of the word because that can be easier to hear. Then, as students
become more comfortable with hearing different sounds, teachers can start
using sounds that are found in the middle of the word.