sounds

Analysing Consonant Sounds: 5 Activities.

Jj is for Jottings 82.  Analysing Consonant Sounds: 5 Activities.

 

In the previous post on analysing sounds, I said I’d give some activities for analysing sounds – in this case consonant sounds at the beginnings and ends of words.  You can use the activities for sounds at the beginning of words, and then repeat for the end consonants.  Remember that, in these early stages, the words need to be very simple – CV (consonant-vowel) eg. “toe”or CVC, eg. “bit”.  When choosing words, remember that one letter doesn’t always equal one sound.  Click on that phrase if you need further information on that – it’s very important.  I have divided the 5 activities for analysing consonant sounds into two areas – Listening and Producing. Continue reading →

Analysing Sounds.

Jj is for Jottings 81.  Analysing Sounds.

Photo of a child analysing sounds in the alphabet book "Aa is for Alpacas" with his grandmother.

Henry is learning sounds the fun way with “Aa is for Alpacas” and the help of his grandmother, Ann.

 

Analysing sounds in reading is really the opposite of blending sounds (see here and  here for discussion and exercises in sound blending.)  Analysing sounds is simply breaking words into their component sounds (whereas blending sounds is joining the sounds up to make words).  The progression is: listening for and isolating sounds at the beginning of a word, then at the end, and finally the vowel in the middle (assuming it is a consonant-vowel-consonant [CVC] word).  It is even better to begin with 2-sound CV words, to make it as easy as possible in the early stages.

The Usual Problem Rears Its Ugly Head – Using Letter Names Instead of Sounds.

If I had a dollar for every time I have said: “What sound can you hear at the start/end of – ?” and the child says the letter name, then I’d be really quite wealthy.  What you need to do then is to use the letter name instead of the sound in the given word to prove that it doesn’t work.  Eg. When a child says that the first sound in “dog” is dee, the response should be along the lines of, “That would be “deeog”.  You said the name of the letter, not the sound that you can hear.  /d-o-g/ makes ‘dog’”.   You also need to encourage them to feel the sound in their mouth.

Children Really Need to Know Letter Names and Sounds When Analysing Sounds.

Of course, if children know the name and sound of each letter of the alphabet, they are far more likely to correctly give you the sound rather than the letter name when analysing or blending words.  This is where  Aa is for Alpacas comes in as the means of teaching this with least effort.  The final goal is to have the alphabet clearly written/printed out in front of the child: Point randomly to letters and say “name” or “sound” and, when the child responds correctly 100% of the time, they really know their sounds and letter names.

Tune in next time for activities to assist children to analyse sounds in words.

Check out the Facebook page: Aa is for Alpacas

 

 

Blending Sounds: A Simple Game For Everyday Life.

Jj is for Jottings 77.  Blending Sounds: A Simple Game For Everyday Life.

What is Blending?

Blending is “pushing” individual sounds or syllables together to make a word.  In early stages of reading the child will be blending sounds, but as they progress and begin to recognise chunks of words, they will also be blending syllables. Continue reading →

Voice Quality and Speech Intelligibility.

Jj is for Jottings 75.  Voice Quality and Speech Intelligibility.

I was reminded the other day about the effects that voice quality can have on the clarity of a person’s speech.  In addition to reduced speech intelligibility caused by speech sound problems (see here), poor voice quality can also interfere with the listener’s ability to understand the message.  I was reminded by this: Continue reading →

Understanding Unclear Speech.

Jj is for Jottings 74.  Understanding Unclear Speech.

When a child’s speech is unclear, it could range from a single sound substitution such as a lisp (which is, in effect, saying /th/ instead of /s/ and which, although not perfectly clear, is perfectly intelligible) right through the continuum to multiple substitutions, omission of sounds and syllables, addition of sounds, and distortion of sounds – the result of which is likely to be largely or completely unintelligible. Continue reading →

Single Words Versus Connected Speech.

Jj is for Jottings 72.  Single Words Versus Connected Speech.

Following on from the discussion about the end of a word not always really being the end (here), we find that, as a result of running our words together to get a smooth flow which is easier for the listener to follow, we can end up with strings of consonants together, as in, “He mends trucks.”  Continue reading →

The End of a Word is Not Always the End.

Jj is for Jottings 70.  The End of a Word is Not Always the End.

In traditional tests of articulation (speech sounds) and when we are sounding out words in reading, we think very much in terms of sounds at the beginning, in the middle and on the end of a word.  In the case of early stage reading and spelling using 3-sound words, we are asking, “What sound can you hear at the beginning of the word?”  “What sound can you hear at the end of the word?   “What sound can you hear in the middle of the word?”  Continue reading →

/l/ Sound is Different on the End.

Jj is for Jottings 69.  /l/ Sound is Different on the End.

You probably haven’t thought about this before, but /l/ (the slashes indicate the sound rather than the letter name) is pronounced differently when it is the last sound in an utterance or followed by a consonant, compared with when it is followed by a vowel.  And if that sounds like gobbledygook, Continue reading →