Phoneme /fōnēm/
Voiced consonants: These make a vibration in your mouth.
ə* means The Schwa/ It has
a sound of a short u vowel used as a low tone and unstressed.
Plural-Phonemes
A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in any
language. A phoneme does not stand or represent anything if left alone.
Consider the first few words of a baby saying, ma..ma... When we join the two
sounds ma+ma together, we form a new word mama. Same way, when different
phonemes are joined together they form words.
Representation of phonemes (Notation)
Phonemes are placed between two forward slashes
“/ /”, such as the phoneme /b/, which represents the sound that the letter b
makes.
The phonemes can usually represent 1 to 4
letters.
1. One
letter: phoneme: phoneme /m/ as a sound of one letter m in the word mat.
2. Two
letter phonemes: phoneme /ch/ as a sound of two letters ch in the word chair.
3. Three
letter phonemes: phoneme /ch/ as a sound of three letters tch in the word catch.
4. Four
letter phonemes: phoneme /ō/ as a sound of four letters ough in the word dough.
Words that contain:
1.
Two phonemes (Two sounds): he/hē/,
she/shē/,
bay /bā/, lay/lā/,
say/sā/, aim/ām/,
egg/ĕg/, knee/nē/
2.
Three phonemes (Three sounds):
chair/chār/,
laid/lād/, hat/hăt/,
beg/bĕg/
3.
Four phonemes (Four sounds):
black/blăk/, crop/krŏp/,
stop/stŏp/, blush/blŭsh/
The two main groups of phonemes are consonant
and vowels.
There are 21 consonants and 5 vowels
Vowels: The sound of vowels are
open sounds that are, when you say them there is no obstruction in your mouth.
They just come out freely. The vowels can either make a short sound as in words
cat, bet, kin, cot, and cut. They can make a long sound as in cane, keep, kind,
cone, and cube or the kind of sounds that you hear in diphthongs (These are
vowel combinations such as oi, oy, ow, ou, and ough wherein the sound starts from
one vowel then slides into the sound of the other vowel).
Another important sound to mention here is the
sound of The Schwa. This behaves as a low short vowel u sound which is
unstressed. Any vowel a, e, I, o or u can take the schwa sound. This kind
appears in words such as annoy and employ. The vowels here a and e make
the schwa sound.
Consonants: The sound of the consonants are not open sounds like that of
the vowels but they have an obstruction in your mouth when you say
them. They can be voiced or unvoiced.
Voiced consonants: These make a vibration in your mouth.
1. b makes the /b/ sound as in bat,
2. d makes the /d/ sound as in dad,
3. g makes the /g/ sound as in gut,
4. j makes the /j/ sound as in jug,
5. v makes the /v/ sound as in vet,
6. z makes the /z/ sound as in zoo,
7. n makes the /n/ sound as in net,
8. l makes the /l/ sound as in log,
9. r makes the /r/ sound as in rat,
10. w makes the /w/ sound as in wet,
11. y makes the /y/ sound as in yak
Unvoiced Consonants: These make no vibration in your mouth.
1. p makes the /p/ sound as in pat
2. t makes the /t/ sound as in tap
3. c makes the /k/ sound as in cat
4. f makes the /f/ sound as in fat
5. h makes the /h/ sound as in hat
6. s makes the /s/ sound as in sat
44 Sounds of English
Consonants
S no.
|
Letter/Combinations
|
Notation
|
Example
|
1.
|
b, bb
|
/b/
|
ball, rubber
|
2.
|
c, cc, k, ch, ck, lk
|
/k/
|
cat, accent, kite,
school, black, chalk
|
3.
|
d, dd, ed
|
/d/
|
dog, addition, scared
|
4.
|
f, ff, ph, lf, gh
|
/f/
|
fat, cliff, phone,
calf, rough
|
5.
|
g, gg, gu, gue
|
/g/
|
gap, foggy, guy,
rogue
|
6.
|
h, wh
|
/h/
|
hen, whose
|
7.
|
j, g, ge, dge
|
/j/
|
jug, gypsy, sage,
smudge
|
8.
|
l, ll
|
/l/
|
leg, ball
|
9.
|
m, mm, mb, lm, mn
|
/m/
|
man. mummy, comb,
calm, hymn
|
10.
|
n, nn, kn, gn
|
/n/
|
net, nanny, knit,
sign
|
11.
|
p, pp
|
/p/
|
pig, apple
|
12.
|
q
|
/kw/
|
queen
|
13,
|
r, rr, wr, rh
|
/r/
|
rat, hurry, write,
rhinestone
|
14.
|
s, ss, c, ce, se, sc, st
|
/s/
|
sat, glass, city,
ace, science, whistle
|
15.
|
t, tt, ed
|
/t/
|
tap, scatter,
pointed
|
16.
|
v, ve
|
/v/
|
van. starve
|
17.
|
w
|
/w/
|
wag
|
18.
|
x
|
/ks/
|
x-mas
|
19.
|
y, i
|
/y/
|
yak, bunion
|
20.
|
z, zz, s, ss, se, ze, x
|
/z/
|
zoo, dazzle, his,
scissor, spouse, bronze, xerox
|
21.
|
s, si
|
/zh/
|
treasure, division
|
22.
|
ch, tch, tu
|
/ch/
|
chair, catch, future
|
23.
|
sh, ch, ti, si, ci
|
/sh/
|
she, machine, nation,
tension, special
|
24.
|
th
|
/th/
|
throw
|
25.
|
th
|
/th/
|
the
|
26.
|
ng, ngue
|
/ŋ/*
|
ring, tongue
|
/ŋ/* represents the sound of “ng”, It has a sound that is a mix of the
/n/ sound with a tail of the /g/ sound.
Vowels
S no.
|
Letter/Combinations
|
Notation
|
Example
|
27.
|
a
|
/ă/
|
bat
|
28.
|
a-e, ai, ay, a, ei, ea, ey, eigh
|
/ā/
|
cave, aim, ray,
acorn, vein, break, they, weigh
|
29.
|
e, ea, ie
|
/ĕ/
|
den, bread, friend
|
30.
|
e, ee, ea, ei, ey, ie, e, i, y
|
/ē/
|
he, seed, eat,
seize, key, chief, equal, gypsy, ski
|
31.
|
i
|
/ĭ/
|
pig
|
32.
|
i, ie, y, ei, eigh, igh
|
/ī/
|
kind, pie, cry, heist,
height, high
|
33.
|
o
|
/ŏ/
|
box
|
34.
|
o_e, oe, oa, o, ow, ou, ough
|
/ō/
|
cone, toe, goat, oval,
crow, soul, dough
|
35.
|
u, oo, ou
|
/ŭ/
|
cub, flood, double
|
36.
|
u_e, ue, u, eu, ew
|
/ū/
|
cube, hue, unicorn, eucalyptus,
dew
|
37.
|
au, aw, augh
|
/au/
|
haunt, jaw, caught
|
38.
|
oo, u, ou
|
/ü/
|
book, push, could
|
39.
|
oo, ew, ou, oe, u_e, ui, ue
|
/ö/
|
cool, drew, route, shoe,
rude, juice, blue
|
40.
|
ow, ou, ough
|
/ow/
|
bow, couch, drought
|
41.
|
oi, oy
|
/oi/
|
soil, boy
|
42.
|
er, ir, or, ur, our, ear
|
/ər/
|
her, skirt, word, fur,
journey, earn
|
43.
|
ar
|
/ar/
|
far
|
44.
|
or, ore, oar
|
/ōr/
|
fork, score, roar
|
Segmentation of Words:
Any word can be broken down into individual
sounds of the respective letters.
When one hears the word “bat ", we hear
three sounds /b/, /ă/, /t/
Taking a word and then stretching it into its
individual sounds are called segmentation.
E.g. Bat-/b/+/ă/+/t/
While teaching kids about segmenting, it is also
significant to help them understand the beginning, middle and ending sounds of
words.
In the word bat, ask the kids about the:
Beginning sound-/b/
Middle sound-/ă/
Ending sound-/t/
Substituting:
While teaching kids about segmenting, remember
in mind the word families.
Word families contain words that end with the
same rhyming words. For example, the -at word family ends with at.
In the above example of bat, ask the kids to
substitute the beginning letter with other letters and see new words form.
b+at=bat
c+at=cat
f+at=fat
p+at=pat
m+at=mat
r+at=rat
s+at=sat
Blending:
Just as in segmenting, where we stretched the
words to try to listen to the individual sounds, in blending we join the sounds
to form new words.
/b/+/ă/+/t/=bat
Activity for teaching kids blending of sounds:
1. First, take the letter cards and place them spaced apart.
B
A
T
Ask the kids to pronounce the individual sounds of these letters.
2. Then, bring the letter cards closer to each other making the sound
pronunciation to go faster.
B
A
T
3. Finally, bring the letter cards close to each other, the sound
pronunciation becomes even more faster as if blending to form a word.
B
A T
---------à
When you bring the cards closer, kids should be able to blend the
sounds together into forming the new words.
Importance of Vowels:
There are 26 letters in the English alphabet.
There are 21 consonants and 5 vowels in the English Language. Even though the
consonants which are of higher count and sound important, do not form any words
if left alone. Vowels act as a bridge between the consonants to form words.
Example: b and g consonants if left alone, do
not form any words.
i.e. b g = No word
However, if we start putting the vowels between
these consonant, we form words.
Placing the vowel "a" between the
consonants b and g, forms the word bag, phonetically represented as /băg/.
Placing the vowel "e" between the
consonants b and g, forms the word beg, phonetically represented as /bĕg/.
Placing the vowel "i" between the
consonants b and g, forms the word big, phonetically represented as /bĭg/.
Placing the vowel "o" between the
consonants b and g, forms the word bog, phonetically represented as /bŏg/.
Placing the vowel "u" between the
consonants b and g, forms the word bug, phonetically represented as /bŭg/.
The above words are known as CVC (Consonant-Vowel-Consonant) Words, these are
the basis for forming the three letter rhyming words, that are introduced first
in teaching phonics to kids.
