Teaching letter sounds

Many parents think they should give their child a boost by teaching them the sounds letters make in isolation. That's alright as long as you teach them the right sound! Sadly, many phonics games are not good at this seemingly simple task. Here's what to look for and what to teach:

Consonant sounds:

Should consist of mainly unvoiced sounds. P should be very quite, not "puh". The biggest problem beginning readers have when they learn that T says "tuh" is that all of a sudden we have the word B-A-T sounding like "batuh". When did that word become 2 syllables? These "stop-start" sounds can be tricky, watch out for: P B T D K G CH J W

"Continuant" sounds can be said until you run out of breath. It is usually easy enough to keep them quiet. They are: F V TH S Z SH L R. Maybe you could lump H in here too but not really. Again, make sure you don't say "huh"...it should be quiet like when you exhale to see your breath on a mirror on in the cold NY winter air.

"Nosey" sounds actually come out your nose! M N NG The air from these sounds comes out of your nose. Go ahead, try to say them with your nose plugged. NG is said with your tongue at the very back of your throat. Don't put a vowel sound on it like "ing" because you see it in other words too: sing, sung, song.

CH works together like in cheese. It is important to teach this as a sound completely seperate from C.
SH works together like in sheep. Again, teach this apart from S.
TH has 2 sounds. Unvoiced like in with. Voiced like in them.
WH is a lot like W. I don't really have a good separation for these two, sorry.

Borrower Sounds: C X Q Y These letters don't have a real sound of their own, they borrow sounds from other letters:

C for the beginning reader says K like in cat. It says S consistently when it is followed by an E, I, or Y, but that is another blog and another rule.
G for the beginning readers is like in gas. It says J often, and especially at the end of a word when followed by an E. (you will never see a J at the end of an English word that I know of)
X says KS like in fox, except at the beginning of a word where it will say Z.
Q says KW like in queen. It is always followed by a U.
Y is a mess. This will be my next post, OK?!

Vowels: (This is when I become a fanatic about any phonics toy that gives you a sound. Obviously, if I tried it and it says "puh", "duh", "guh", then I ditch it right away. If not, I check out the vowels)

Here are all the short (or soft) vowel sounds to start off with:
A like in hat or apple
E like in hen or elephant
I like in fin or igloo (NOT ice cream)
O like in dog or octopus (NOT open)
U like in fun or umbrella (NOT unicorn)

See the "E rule" post and 2VGW for more vowel sounds. There are 17 in all!