Do you know your letter sounds?
Letter/sound recognition (phonics)
and phonological awareness
(ex: rhyme, syllables, onset/rime, blending and segmenting) are the two best predictors of reading success.
As a reading specialist, part of my job included screening every kindergartener at the beginning of the year on their knowledge of letter names, sounds, and basic phonological awareness.
Some students came with no knowledge. Others with some knowledge.
And some would come knowing all of their letters and sounds.
You may think that if a child goes into Kindergarten knowing all of their letter sounds it would mean that the reading process of blending and segmenting words would come more easily.
Most of the time, that’s true.
But would it surprise you to know that it isn’t always the case?
Why? Because some students enter elementary school having learned some (or in some cases many) of their letter sounds incorrectly.
So what’s incorrect about the sounds they’ve learned?
Have you heard of the schwa sound?
It’s a neutral, unstressed vowel sound.
It’s like the sound someone makes when they’re unsure what they’re going to say next…”uh….”
It sounds very similar to the short u sound.
It feels natural to put this schwa sound on the end of a letter sound (especially stop sounds) because many times, consonants are followed by a vowel sound.
It might “sound right” to us, but this added schwa sound can impede reading. How?
It makes segmenting and blending much more difficult for students.
Ex: ex: map /m/ /a/ /p/ not: /muh/ /a/ /puh/
Ex: /b/ /e/ /d/ not: /buh/ /e/ /duh/
*The sound also impedes student’s spelling: andu (and)
Let’s review the sounds:
Continuous Sounds
f, l, m, n, r, s, v, z (The letter sound goes on indefinitely.)
Stop Sounds
b, c, d, g, h, j, k, p, t (Feel your breath when you say the sound with your hand in front of your mouth.)
Tricky Sounds
q, w, x, y ( /qu/ is ok to say because students will learn to never write q without u)
Vowel Sounds
a, e, i, o, u (Always start teaching the short sound of the vowels.)
Tip: Think of a word that starts with that letter and clip it: isolate just the initial sound.
In conclusion….
It might take some practice, but your child will be in a much better position to be successful in their reading journey!
Here’s a video on how to say letter sounds correctly from the Heggerty team on YouTube that may be helpful: https://bit.ly/48yTWXb
It takes many repetitions over time for children to learn their letters and sounds, so it’s very important that they learn them correctly.
Bad habits are hard to break!
Anne Philipson has a Bachelor of Science Degree in Elementary Education and a minor in Early Childhood. She has 27 years of experience as a teacher. Six of those years were in the first-grade classroom, and twenty-one were spent as a reading interventionist teaching students who experienced difficulty learning to read. As a retired educator, she enjoys writing books for young children.
