Category Archives: letter sounds

New kindergarteners, new readers

Posted on August 29, 2024 | Leave a comment

It’s September, which means a new school year, which means a new set of kindergarteners learning to read.

Where to start? I have hundreds of blogs on this website showing how to teach reading. But in general,

Start with prereading skills. These include knowing how to hold a book, which cover is the front, reading from left to right and from up to down, and knowing that text means words.

Teach that letters are symbols of sounds, with each letter representing a different sound. Of course, some letters represent more than one sound, and some letter pairs represent a single sound, but that news can wait.

Help the child memorize several consonant/sound pairings and one vowel/sound pairing (usually the letter A). The child does not need to know every letter sound to start reading. Learn a few, and while you make words, learn a few more. And knowing ABC order is not important at all at this point.

Make sure the child realizes that joining letters together forms words. Create two- and three-letter words with the letters the child knows. I recommend using letter tiles, saying aloud the letter sounds and moving them closer together until they create words.

Help the child learn one-syllable, short-vowel words which follow the rules. “Golf,” yes. “Half,” no.

Help the child learn often used “sight” words necessary to form sentences. Lists are online.

Cover adding S for the plural; double F, L, S, and Z to make a single sound at the end of some words; CK to make the sound K; blends at the beginning of words; and blends at the ends of words. By now it’s winter break or maybe spring break depending on how often your child works on reading and how ready your child is.

Supplement what your child is learning with small early-reading booklets. You will find many publishers.

Review what the child has learned at each lesson. One way is to buy reading workbooks. The quality varies greatly. I recommend Explode the Code because it follows the pattern I have outlined above and because children like the silly drawings. (I have no connection to the publisher of that series.)

Keep reading to your child to instill a strong interest in reading.

Teach long-vowel, single-syllable words containing silent E and double vowels. Expect backsliding here from many children.

By now your child is more than ready for first grade. Check with your state education department’s standards for kindergarten to be sure you have covered everything. If you haven’t, or even if you have, keep at it over school breaks, including summer break.

And check back issues of my blog. If I haven’t covered a topic you are looking for, let me know and I will.

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Posted in ABC's, beginning readers, Explode the Code, letter sounds, letter tiles, methods of teaching reading, phonics, practice reading skills, prereading skills, reading in kindergarten, reading readiness., short vowels, silent "e" words

Transitioning from short vowels to long vowels

Posted on March 28, 2024 | Leave a comment

Today I worked with a kindergartener who has mastered CVC words with blends at the beginnings and ends of words (for example, “slept” and “brand”). It was time to move on to long vowels.

I started with two-letter words ending in “e” (be, he, me, and we). I explained for small words ending in “e,” the “e” is pronounced differently. Even so, the child wanted to say the words as if they ended in a short e.

In one way this was satisfying to me, her teacher. She had learned the rules about pronouncing short vowels.

But in another way it was frustrating. Her brain was saying she didn’t accept the logic of one letter representing two sounds. Until now every letter of every word we have read together has had one sound only. But now I am changing the rules. It’s like I am telling the child that until now your little brother has had one name, but from now on he is going to have two names, and you have to remember when to call him John and when to call him Fred. Huh?

Some students learn sight words in school at the same time they are learning phonics. For them, words like “me” and “go” are memorized rather than sounded out. But my student has not learned sight words, so I needed to switch gears.

I stopped focusing on two-letter words. Instead, I focused on words ending in “ee.” It was easier for my student to accept that “ee” represents a different sound from “e.” So, we worked on reading words like “bee,” “fee,” “lee,” “see,” and “tee.” I added nonsense words like “dee,” “pee,” “vee,” and “zee” as well to extend the practice.

At our next class I plan to continue delaying two-letter words like “he” and “me.” Instead I will continue with “ee” words, adding ending letters and blends. “Bleed,” “creek,” “heel,” “seem,” “green,” “sleep,” and “feet” are some examples.

Until now, my student has moved quickly in acquiring reading skills. But I may need to slow down now and make sure she can go back and forth from short-vowel words to long-vowel words and vice-versa. For some students this is easy. For others, it takes months. We will see.

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Posted in blends, CVC words, exceptions to phonics rules, letter sounds, long vowels, phonics, pronunciation of words, reading strategies, reading tips, short vowels, sight words, teaching tips, vowels

Learning to read is not a race

Posted on November 15, 2023 | Leave a comment

This fall I am teaching two kindergarteners to read via Zoom. I am making progress with both students, but it is an uneven progress typical of young children.

One student—I will call her Jane—is lighthearted and imaginative. For Halloween, she came to class wearing a wolf’s face. Jane is social, engaging me in conversation as easily as she talks to her sibling. She can identify almost all letters and letter sounds. When I show her an alphabet letter, she will say, “Maybe B, for banana and ball.”

Jane is working on reading two-letter “A” words like “at” and “ax.” Three-letter words are a bit advanced except for a few she has memorized. Her mother tells me that outside class she loves to mix up letters and to make silly sounds.

John is serious and reserved with me. He does not engage in chit-chat during our lesson. Two months ago, he could identify fewer letters and their sounds than Jane could, but now he has mastered them all. He pronounced two-letter “A” words with such consistency that we have moved on to three-letter “A” words. At our lesson this week John read several phrases and a few sentences containing short “A” words (A fat cat sat. A man ran in a can.). I was thrilled. He smiled and said nothing. At our next lesson we will begin to work on short “O” words.

Mrs. K is a writing, reading and grammar tutor.

Both Jane and John are normal kindergarteners, displaying behaviors typical of children learning to read. One is not better. One is not worse. They are each moving along at their own pace.

Learning to read is not like learning algebra. With algebra, every student starts at the same place on page one of the text and is expected to keep up with the pace the teacher sets for covering the curriculum within a school year.

With reading, students start at different places depending on personality, preschool or parental exposure to letters and sounds, hearing and vision acuity, being read to, and speaking English as a native language or as a second language. Age of the student is another factor.

By the end of kindergarten, both John and Jane should have a solid foundation in phonics. They will continue instruction in how to read in first and second grades. At that point their reading skills will probably not be any more identical than they are now. But they will read sufficiently well to use their reading skills to learn more. That’s why we learn to read, after all—so we can keep learning.

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Posted in ABC's, beginning readers, learning, letter sounds, phonics, reading in kindergarten, reading readiness., short vowels

14 disconnects between letter names and letter sounds

Posted on October 22, 2023 | Leave a comment

Two kindergarteners I am teaching this fall are having the same problem when trying to figure out the sound a letter is associated with. They are listening to the beginning sound of the letter name, and they are assuming that must be the sound linked to the letter.

In some cases they are right. The name of the letter B begins with a “b” sound, just like the sound B stands for. The name of the letter K begins with a “k” sound, just like the sound K stands for.

But for many letters, this correlation does not hold true. The name of the letter C, for example, begins with an S sound. The name of the letter F begins with an E sound. The name of the letter G begins with a J sound. The name of the letter W begins with a D sound.

Take a look at the table below and notice how many letter names do not begin with the sound that the letter represents. By my count, it’s more than half.

Letter Sound the letter name begins with

a a

b b

c s

d d

e e

f e

g j

h a

i i

j j

k k

l e

m e

n e

o o

p p

q k

r ah

s e

t t

u y

v v

w d

x e

y w

z z

So, if you have a little one struggling to pair a letter name with the sound the letter stands for, relax. It’s normal. Be patient. Gently correct the mistake as many times as it takes. Your child will get it eventually. We all do.

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Posted in ABC's, letter sounds, reading readiness.

The four, no five, no eight pillars of reading

Posted on August 13, 2023 | Leave a comment

Focusing on four skills leads to good reading achievement in children, we used to think. Then came a comprehensive US government report in 2000 saying five skills are necessary. In the ensuing 23 years, researchers tell us three more skills are necessary. Let’s look at those skills, starting with a chart showing four skills, followed by information on five skills, and ending with the latest three skills.

Previously, vocabulary was considered part of the fourth component of reading. Now it is considered a separate component, as are three previously unrecognized skills: oral language, writing, and background knowledge.

Phonemic awareness, the ability to hear and identify individual sounds in words—such as the sound of “b” in “bat”—and to move sounds around to hear them in various parts of words. This skill is taught in pre-K and kindergarten to most American school children.

Phonics, the ability to match the sounds of English to letters or to letter pairs in order to form words. This skill is usually taught in kindergarten and first grade.

Vocabulary, the ability to recognize and understand three kinds of words: everyday spoken words, more complex words (SAT-like words), and domain specific words (words used in specific contexts, such as the baseball-related words of pitcher, shortstop, foul ball and bunt).

Fluency, the ability to read text accurately at conversational speed, using expression.

Comprehension, the ability to understand what is read.

The three other skills that have been identified as crucial to learning to read are

Oral language, the ability to understand spoken language and to speak it. Proficiency in oral language precedes proficiency in reading.

Writing, the ability to use written symbols to represent words and to transmit meaning

Background knowledge, the ability to store and retrieve information and apply it to new knowledge gained from reading.

No wonder reading is such a complex skill for children to master.

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Posted in academic vocabulary, background knowledge, comprehension, fluency, letter sounds, oral language, phonemes, phonics, pronunciation of words, reading comprehension, reading readiness., reading research, reading-writing connection, sounds of English, systematic phonics instruction, vocabulary

You can teach your child to read. Start with a phonics assessment.

Posted on May 21, 2023 | Leave a comment

Are you are planning to teach your child how to read this summer, either starting at the beginning or filling in the gaps? If so, where do you start?

I suggest you give your child a pretest to see what reading skills your child has learned well, and what ones he has not yet grasped. The words on this pretest are more or less divided into four kinds of words in this order: 1. Short (closed) vowel, one-syllable words. These include one- and two-letter words, words beginning or ending with blends and digraphs (black, church) words which end in twin consonants (fell, jazz), words which end in “ck,” and words to which an “s” can be added to make plural words or certain verbs (maps, runs).

2. Long (open) vowel, one-syllable words. These include words ending with silent “e,” words with double vowels which have only one vowel pronounced (goes, pear), and certain letter combinations (ild, old). They also include words with “oi,” “oy,” “ow” and “ou” letters. 3. Two– and three-syllable words which follow the above rules (catnip, deplete) and two- and three-syllable words which don’t follow the above rules but which follow a pattern (light, yield). These words include words with certain suffixes (le, ies) and words with a single consonant between two vowels (robin, motel).

4. Exceptions. These include words with silent letters (gnaw, lamb), words from other languages (debris, cello), and words which fit no pattern (business). Ask your child to read the words in the pretest below. Each row across tests a particular phonics skill. If you child hesitates at all, that is the place to begin teaching him or her phonics. I will talk more about how to teach these four groups of phonics skills in my next blog. Phonics assessment bad, hem, fit, don, pug, am, if, lass, jazz lock, Mick, bills, cliffs, mitts, catnip, Batman grand, stent, frisk, stomp, stuck chuck, shun, them, branch, brush, tenth star, fern, birds, fork, purr, actor, doctor, victor muffin, kitten, collect, pepper, gallon complex, helmet, falcon, napkin, after tantrum, muskrat, constant, fulcrum, ostrich skate, bike, Jude, mole, dare, shore, tire, pure need, cheer, aim, hair, bay, pie, boat, oar, Joe, low, soul fruit, few, child, blind, fold, colt, roll, light, high earn, worm, rook, pool fault, claw, all, chalk, Walt boil, so, pound, down comet, dragon, liver, salad, denim total, ever, student, basic, demon, vital apron, elude, Ethan, Owen, ideal, usurp inside, nearly, absent, unicorn, degrade, tripod advance, offense, fence gripped, planned, melted, batted, handed sweeping, boiling, thinning, flopping, biking, dating rapper, saddest, finer, bluest, funnier, silliest easily, busily, massive, active, arrive, wives keys, monkeys, armies, carried action, section, musician, racial, crucial, nuptials brittle, pickle, carbon, dormer parcel, decent, gem, urge, badge lose, sugar, nature, sure graph, Phil, then, moth bomb, thumb, gnat, gnome, high, sign whip, whirl, echo, ghoul, knee, knob could, calf, folk, hustle, listen, wrist alone, bread, bear, chief, young, squaw, swan, waltz, word decision, exposure, gigantic, polarize, occupant, quarantine If you want to help your child learn to read, one of the best things you can do is not to let him guess. Most words can be deciphered if the student has a phonics background. Also, don’t let your child depend on pictures for meaning once the child starts to read. Most adult reading material is not accompanied by graphics. Students must learn to gain meaning from the text alone. If you have decided to help your child read this summer, good for you. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to help your child read better. Years of research show that the best way to teach reading is to start with letter sounds (phonemes) and then to combine those letter sounds into words (phonics). If you do this in a systematic way, such as following the four-part sequence I describe above, your child will learn to read.

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Posted in blends, consonants, digraphs, double vowel words, guessing at words, letter sounds, long vowels, phonemes, phonics, picture books, reading research, reading strategies, reading tips, short vowels, silent "e" words, sounds of English, syllables, vowels

Largest US school system to change how reading is taught

Posted on May 9, 2023 | Leave a comment

With half its students unable to pass reading tests, the City of New York has decided to change the way it teaches reading.

Starting this fall in some schools and in the fall of 2024 in others, “the science of reading” will ground all reading instruction. This means that students will focus on learning sounds associated with letters (phonemes) and on joining those letter sounds (phonics) to form words.

Chancellor David C. Banks will announce the change today (May 9, 2023). He hopes the new approach will change the current outcome in reading instruction in which half the city’s third through eighth graders are not proficient in reading.

The city’s schools are divided into 32 local districts. Each district can choose one of three acceptable reading programs, all of which focus–to varying degrees–on phonics. Research has shown that a phonics-based approach to learning to read produces the best results for primary grade students.

The city’s principals’ union is opposed to a one-size fits all approach in the city’s 700 elementary schools. Teachers say they need training.

Local school districts within the city will have some choice in how to proceed. They must choose one of three reading programs: Into Reading, Expeditionary Learning, and Wit & Wisdom. They can and in some cases must supplement these programs with more systematic phonics instruction.

One advantage of the unified approach is to provide students who transfer from one New York school to another a single reading curriculum. Another is to follow the mandate of New York’s Mayor Eric Adams, who has dyslexia, to teach reading using a phonics-based approach. Still another is to provide teachers with materials that have been shown to work, so each teacher doesn’t need to seek materials independently.

The change will start this fall in city school districts showing the least proficiency in reading.

New York is the latest and biggest school district to show dissatisfaction with the way reading has been taught and to turn to a research-supported approach. Poor student performance on reading tests, parents’ demanding change after Covid 19 educational losses, and a growing cohort of students who cannot read are propelling changes in reading instruction throughout the US.

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Posted in dyslexia, letter sounds, literacy, methods of teaching reading, phonemes, phonics, reading research

Teaching ĭ CVC words and ĕ CVC words

Posted on May 30, 2022 | Leave a comment

Ĭ and ĕ are the two hardest vowel sounds to distinguish. Here is how I suggest you work with children to differentiate these sounds. Mix the ĭ CVC words with the previously learned ă, ŏ, and ŭ CVC words. Then mix the ĕ CVC words with the previously learned words, not including the ĭ words. Lastly mix only the ĭ CVC words with the ĕ CVC words. Repeat these steps indefinitely until your child can read the majority of ĭ and ĕ CVC words correctly. Learning the ĭ and ĕ CVC words can take longer than the other three letter sounds combined.

Sample ĕ words

bed	fed	led	red	Ted
beg	egg	keg	leg	Peg
Ben	den	hen	men	pen
bet	get	jet	let	pet
bell	dell	fell	Nell	sell
Bess	less	mess	Tess	yes

Sample ĭ words

bid	did	hid	kid	lid
big	dig	fig	pig	rig
dim	him	Kim	rim	Tim
bin	din	fin	pin	tin
dip	hip	lip	quip	zip
bit	fit	it	pit	zit

Problem: Distinguishing between nearly identical sounds and words

Short ĕ and short ĭ are difficult sounds to distinguish for most beginning readers. When I teach these sounds, I rely on two game-like activities.

For one of the activities, I gather the pictures of words which start with ĕ and ĭ, or which use them in the CVC pattern. I put these Ee and Ii cards in front of the child and we practice saying those letter sounds. Then the child sorts the deck of cards I have created, putting cards under one of the two letter sounds. We say the word aloud to reinforce the letter sound.

For another activity, I have created BINGO-like cards of ĕ and ĭ words. I limit each BINGO card to nine words. More words can seem overwhelming. I say one of the words and the child finds and covers it, using a marker. To extend this activity, the child and I exchange places. The child says the words and I find the correct spelling.

big	beg	dig
set	sit	bet
lit	let	bit

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Posted in CVC words, letter sounds, letter tiles, methods of teaching reading, phonics, reading readiness., reading strategies, short vowels, teaching tips, vowels

Learning to read, one sound at a time

Posted on May 8, 2022 | Leave a comment

A six-year-old kindergartener learning to read VC and CVC words worked with me yesterday for the first time. We met the day before via zoom. He was nervous, sitting on his grandmother’s lap for support.

I started by assessing his phonics skills. Because he doesn’t know me and has not worked online, his responses to the phonics assessment I did might not be spot on. After a few lessons, when he is more relaxed, I will have a better idea of his skill level.

But for now he was able to show me he knows letter names, consonant sounds and short vowel sounds. He can sound VC words easily. When he reads CVC words, he cannot “slide” all the sounds together to form words. So that is where my reading instruction will begin.

Yesterday we worked using letter tiles. I put before him the word “at,” and then I added one onset letter sound at a time, forming words like “fat” and “rat.” He sounded out words from several word families using short a, o, and u. After 20 minutes, his squirming became excessive, and we ended the lesson. Today I will teach him again for another short lesson.

His grandmother showed me a “beginner” picture book the boy has, but as is often true, that book is not a good “beginner” book for students learning phonics. In that book, advanced reading words are mixed in with sight words and CVC words. I recommended she set it aside for a few months.

She wondered if she should use flash cards with words printed on them to help her grandson learn. If the words are sight words which cannot be sounded out phonetically—words like “are” and “the”—then yes. But if the words are capable of being sounded out, I said the student should learn them by sounding them out. Otherwise he might think he should memorize the look of a word to pronounce it.

Should he guess at words? No. If a child learns to read following the rules of phonics, eventually he will be able to sound out almost any word, even long words like “dinosaur” and “alphabet.” Teaching a child to guess introduces a habit which will hobble him the rest of his reading life.

This student has learned to read the way phonics experts recommend, sounding out each letter. With time, almost all CVC words will become sight words for this student and he will no longer need to sound them out. But to reach that stage of reading, he needs practice sounding out words.

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Posted in books for beginning readers, consonants, guessing at words, letter sounds, letter tiles, methods of teaching reading, phonics, practice reading skills, reading strategies, reading tips, short vowels, sight words, teaching online, teaching tips

How to teach words using ă and ŏ

Posted on April 11, 2022 | Leave a comment

Suppose you have taught your child the 16 consonant sounds which don’t vary at the beginning of words: b, d, f, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, qu, r, t, v, x, and z. Now you are ready to teach vowel sounds.

Explain what vowels are

Because you will be using the words vowel and consonant with your child as you teach, make sure you take time to explain what these words mean. Vowel refers to five letters all the time (a, e, i, o, and u) and two letters sometimes (y and w). Consonant refers to all the other letters and to y and w most of the time. For now you can leave out the y and w, but when you teach small words like by and now, mention that y and w act as vowels sometimes.

Should you say short / closed vowels? Or long / open vowels?

Today many support materials refer to vowels followed by a consonant in the same syllable (cat, hot) as closed vowels. Years ago these vowels were called short vowels, and they were pictured with a curve over the vowel as in ă, ĕ, ĭ, ŏ and ŭ. Similarly, vowels coming at the end of a syllable (go, hero) are today called open vowels by some reading support workbooks. Previously they were called long vowels and pictured with a horizontal line over them as in ā, ē, ī, ō, and ū. I will use the terms short and long since those are the terms most parents recognize. I will use markings over vowels such as ă, ĕ, ĭ, ŏ and ŭ when referring to a particular short vowel sound and ā, ē, ī, ō, and ū when referring to a particular long vowel sound.

Naming vowel sounds as short or long is important because we need a vocabulary to use with children when we refer to vowels pronounced like their letter names and vowels pronounced more softly. Whichever terms you use, make sure your child understands them.

Teaching words with a ă sound

While you are teaching the 16 consistent consonant-letter sounds, you can begin to teach one short vowel sound. I recommend starting with the letter ă because almost all phonics support materials start with the vowel ă, and because ă might be the easiest short vowel sound to master. The support materials I suggest for my students are the Explode the Code series. That series starts with ă words.

When I am teaching in person, I use flash cards with pictures of words beginning with ă such as alligator, astronaut, and apple. I recommend you teach your child to say “ă as in apple” to reinforce the letter connected to the sound.

Choose five or six consonant letter sounds your child has mastered. Using letter tiles, form two and three letter words such as am, an, at, bat, bam, tan, and mat, etc. Place the letter tiles for one word an inch or so apart and ask your child to say the sounds, keeping the picture of the apple on the table too, for reference. Repeat saying the sounds as you slowly move the letters closer and closer together until the child says the word. It might take many tries, but usually there is a Eureka! moment when the child realizes she is reading a word, not just letter sounds. Reading teachers call these tiny words CVC words, meaning consonant-vowel-consonant words.

Gradually add more consonant sounds and form more words with ă as the vowel sound. If the child loses interest, one way to extend the lesson is to use her name and write a goofy sentence such as Kim is a pan or Kim is a map. Another way is to use your name and have her end the sentence. Mom is a ____. Teach her that the vowel goes first or in the middle. Try mispronouncing a word she writes and ask her if you said it correctly.

You can buy magnetic cards which you can cut into small rectangles to attach to the back of letter tiles. Then you can work in a metal lasagna pan or pizza pan or on the refrigerator. If your child is four or five, a short lesson (ten minutes) teaching in one mode followed by another short lesson in another mode (writing words on an iPad or laptop, writing in a workbook) might be all she can handle for one session. I have given one-hour lessons to a four-year-old, but I needed to have six mini-lessons to sustain her interest.

Teaching words with a ŏ sound

When, after several days or weeks, you are sure your child can read ă words, move on to ŏ words. Create a reference card—an octopus, for example. Work on two and three letter ŏ words such as on, off, odd, Oz, nod, fob, and Bob, etc. After several days or weeks—whatever it takes—mix ŏ words with ă words.

To reinforce your work, read together picture books. When you come to a word she can pronounce, point to it and ask her to say the word. Two or three times are enough to show her that what she is learning applies to her real world.