Jj is for Jottings 84.  Vowel Discrimination Activities.

 

As promised in the previous article, here are some vowel discrimination activities to help your child to hear the difference between vowel sounds, in particular the tricky pairs of a/u and i/e.  At the same time these activities reinforce the sound-letter links for the vowels.  After all, it’s not much use for reading and spelling if you can hear the difference between them but don’t know which letter belongs to the sound.

VOWEL DISCRIMINATION ACTIVITIES:SAME/DIFFERENT.

The simplest vowel discrimination activities have vowels at the beginning of the word rather than in the middle, because it’s easier to hear the vowel at the start.  And asking the child to discriminate whether two sounds/words are the “same” or “different” is easier than having them actually tell you what sound they can hear.  Make sure they know the concepts of “same” and “different” before you begin.

Activity 1.

Say two words beginning with short vowels – /a,e,i,o,u/ and ask your child to tell you whether they sound the same or different.  (Obviously if they are the same, the words will be identical).  You don’t have to use real words, which makes it much easier to think up words on the spot.  Begin by using vowels which sound very different, such as /o/ and /e/, since these are easier to discriminate.  Slowly narrow the pairs down to the real targets, which are most likely those tricky pairs of a/u and e/i.

If you were aiming at a/u confusion, some examples would be:

if/off -> add/add->egg/ugg->in/an->up/up->um/om->and/and->app/up->up/app and so on.  Be careful that you don’t fall into a pattern of same,  different, same, or any other pattern.  Children are quick to respond to patterns so they don’t have to do the actual work.

When your child is 100% successful over several occasions, you can move on.

Activity 2. 

Repeat Activity 1, but with the vowel sound in the middle.

Stage 1.  It is easier to use the same consonants at the beginning and end of the word, and vary only the vowel. For example:

bob/bob->bib/bab->bob/beb->bub/bub->bab/bub->bab/bab->bub/bab.

Stage 2.  When the first stage is successful you can begin to vary the consonants:

Kid/cod->bag/bag->tot/tut->pet/pat->lid/lad->rat/rut->bug/bag etc.

VOWEL DISCRIMINATION ACTIVITIES: INDICATING WHICH SOUNDS ARE HEARD.

Children can indicate what sound they hear in several ways:

Saying the sound.  This can be a problem if a child’s speech is not clear, because you can’t be sure if they are actually correct, so is not really recommended.

Pointing to the sound they hear.  The five vowels can be written out in front of them, and they select the correct one.  This also reinforces the link between sound and grapheme (written letter).

Writing the sound they hear.  This is even better, because it also requires perfect knowledge of sound-letter links for the vowels.  (For initial teaching of sound-letter links and further explanation, see why this book and get the book).

You can use virtually the same activities for pointing and writing.  You would start with pointing.  Write out the vowel sounds in question for children to choose from, and then progress to children having to write the correct grapheme by themselves.

Activity 3. 

Write out the vowels, say a word (real or nonsense), and have the child point to the correct vowel.  You can use the same progression as for the Same/Different activities, from words beginning with a vowel, to words with the vowel in the middle.

A variation on the pointing version is to write the vowels out randomly all over a sheet of scrap paper.  You say a word, and children circle the sound they hear.  The aim is to choose words so the sheet of paper ends up with every sound circled.

Activity 4. 

Repeat activity 3, but with the child writing the vowel, rather than pointing to it.

When doing these exercises, keep in mind that you need to say the words clearly, but don’t exaggerate.  Overdoing the articulation can actually distort the vowel sounds.

 

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