Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Over the next few sections, we're going to be talking about the building block of learning
which is letter sounds. Two different types of letter sounds, there are consonants which
are most of the alphabet and then there are five vowels. The five vowels you should know
but they are a e i o and u. Now the vowels we pronounce very differently when we're teaching
children so that they get a very clear understanding of how to pronounce when they're reading and
that will help them in sounding out words tremendously. The consonants I'm going to
talk about first. Now the consonants, if you remember sounding out, you might have remembered
that people say kuh aa tuh, cat. Now that's very close, that's very good but to make it
even more clear, we're going to take the vowel off the consonant so instead of saying kuh
aa tuh, we're going to say k aa t. Now the difference is there's no uh in front of each
consonant because when we say cat we don't say kuhaatuh, look at that little kuhaatuh
running down the street and we want children to be as clear as possible, especially when
they're starting out so to make sure you're not doing that with consonants. Put your hand
in front of your mouth, if you feel a little puff of air on your hand, you know you're
doing it wrong. You don't feel that puff of air, you know you're doing it right. You might
feel a little puff with the t but try to minimize it as much as possible. And that's how we
start to teach them to sound out. Now the vowel can go a long time. There are five vowels
and you can stretch it as long as you feel the child needs k aaaaa t, like that. And
that's how we enunciate letter sounds.