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!

Bees and Dees

This is a reading post for those of you with emergent readers that mix up their 'b' and 'd' when reading or writing. One thing you should know is this: most kids do it. You or your child are not automatically labeled dyslexic just because you switch these around, even if you do it consistently. There are a couple of ways that I have used to help young children figure this one out:

1. "Check your bed" Look carefully at the word bed and notice the way the b and d look at each other. Sometimes I even write out the word bed on paper and draw a little stick person laying down with the head on the b. Did you know you can take your bed with you anywhere you go? See below, even Tasha can do it.
When you hold up your fists, thumbs extended you have the b and the d. As you say the word bed, you know the 'b' sound comes first, the 'd' sound comes at the end. From there you can match the sound to the letter and sound you need. *

2. "barbie doll" This one works for the girls. It's the same as checking your bed, just know that barbie comes first, and doll comes last. (this is for you, should you need it, Lizzie!) *

*It is helpful for both the "check your bed" and "barbie doll" helps to emphasis the sounds as you touch your child's hands. Say 'b' (while pulling on their left thumb)-'e'(real quiet)-'d' (while pulling on their right thumb. OR, say "barbie" while shaking the left thumb, and "doll" while shaking the right thumb. You may to do this several times in the beginning, or review when problems start to arise again.

3. "Straight lips?" Say the sound 'b'. When you say it your lips are together and form a straight line. (exaggerate this if you need to) Now, look at the letter b and notice that the first thing on the b is a straight line. (not so on the letter d, right?!) The trick to this one is when you see the straight line, start with your lips together. If you need to write 'b' sound, notice that your lips are together so you should start with a straight line.

Now for the funny thing that happened to me once, several years ago. I had several students that mixed up these two letters, ALL THE TIME. When I tutor I work across a table from my students, therefore everything I see is upside down and backwards. I'm pretty talented, huh? So you have 3 kids in a row that will say 'b' for 'd' and vice-versus, I have to reverse it in my head, then flip it back around for them to get it right. Occasionally I would get up and look at it right side up just to make sure I had it right. One night I got home and was talking to Bill and switched the sounds around when I SAID something to him. I wasn't reading anything, just talking. It was hilarious and Bill couldn't stop laughing. We can't remember the word but it was something like dab for bad or briddle for dribble, a real word none the less.

The bottom line is not to be too discouraged if you child does this. It COULD be a sign of something more, but often times it is just something that is learned over time.

Opening our Eyes

In the garden of Eden, Eve was tempted by Satan to eat of the forbidden fruit so "her eyes might be opened". Although it was the right choice, it was seen as a sin and the rest of the story is history. If she didn't do it, neither would Adam, we wouldn't be here and we would not know the good from the evil. But then let's face it, in this world there is a lot of good, a lot of evil, and a lot of in between. Don't worry, this isn't about all the evil in the world. It isn't even about the good. This is about finding good, better, best, and incorporating the ideas together. Because, let's face it, we can't always have the best so we have to work it in to the good that we have and know.

April is a brilliant woman who rediscovered Waldorf Education for the both of us. Right at a pivotal point in our children's lives, she directed me back to the ideal way for children to learn that was taught in one brief glimpse in college. As I recall, Waldorf is what we all strive for, want and need but rarely find. But April found it...right here in Phoenix! WooHoo! I wasn't in love until I read the book, but I found the best and want it for my child. Now, I just have to see if Desert Marigold will deliver what the philosophy promises. (I have been advised that it might not, but I'm not casting judgment as of yet.)

So I deviated from my point...letting the best meet the good. I tutor reading and found a great way to help kids with auditory processing problems. I use the LindaMood Bell Phoeneme Sequencing (LiPS) program. It works, without failure, even with kids who don't really want to learn. You've heard of phonics? I call this super phonics plus some. I have this kid that forgets everything and LiPS has given him some tools to help him retrieve the information he knows. Often times I have to intervene, but he's learning to do it on his own now and when I see it I'm amazed! The other day he forgot what a C sounds like. He could get the sssssss part, but not the kkkkkkkk sound. What the heck? Who forgets that?! This kid does. So I remembered the story from the Waldorf book about the cat, I drew a cat with a big swishy tail, and made sure the outline of the tail was a darkened letter C. Wa-la! The best meets the good, or best to best. Whatever, the kid got it and I didn't have to tell him outright. Maybe he'll remember the cat, maybe not, but now he has just one more thing to help him out. Brilliant.

So, my eyes are opened and I'm looking at everything through a different frame of mind. I know my work is good, and works for all my students. They can read now, and couldn't before. That's good, but is there better?!

Rhyming and reading

It is important for kids to learn to rhyme at an early age. It helps with everything related to reading and spelling with confidence. The traditional nursery rhymes, which are sometimes quite absurd, are really good for kids. If you don't like them, make up your own or find better ones. The point is, kids learn how to hear the text flow and hear the repetitive sounds in words even when the initial sound changes. Even a child with a learning disablily or speech impediment will soar if they are given a solid foundation to start with. Some of my kids with the most severe auditory processing difficulties excel when it comes to reading text because they know what a book should sound like. Many times they still have a hard time rhyming, but they can fill in the gaps or the words they can't sound out (the, what, who) because they know what kind of word should go there.

Here are 2 inspiring stories that illustrate why an actual book and story are important to reading developement:

1. A Braille story: A dedicated mother was trying to gain the tools to help her son. Her son was blind so she was trying to learn to read Braille. Of course, the initial books she got while her son was young were for her but she let him "read" them. One day when the family sat down to read a story her son was reaching out to find the book and feel the words! He was under 2. He understood where the story was coming from and wanted to read/feel along.

2. An ESL story: A principal and staff at a local school was determined to get their largely ESL, low-income population of elementary students to read. They held a parent meeting and asked all of the parents to read to or with their children every night. I believe the meeting was translated and the principal spoke. Weeks later one particular student was excelling and the teacher wanted to know how because there was nothing specifically that she had changed. They called the mother in for a conference. The mother thought she had done something wrong. Through a Spanish-English interpreter they discovered that the mother could not read. However, every night since the parent meeting she would sit down with her son and make up a story to a book (in Spanish). Now here son was an excellent reader (in English).

Yes, I realize that actual reading is not always taking place here but it is the "act" of reading that is important. It is the communication to your child that is important: here is a page with words on it, I will say them, and you will get something from it. Even the best TV show (and we love TV here) doesn't replace physically turning the pages of a book. Internet and games are great for supplementing. Books on tape are fabulous IF they are not replacing you. Dallin H. Oaks gave a talk on choosing between good, better and best. Different situations call for different things. A book on tape might be the best option for a long car ride, but good conversation might be the best idea too. Listening to a book on tape is better than watching TV, but reading to your child would be best.

But now back to rhyming...can't we all figure out words by associating them to words we already know? If I wrote the word "medge" you would know what that sounds like because you would think of the word "hedge". Have you ever read a rhyming book and had to go back because you mispronounced a word and found out what it was supposed to rhyme with? There's a line in a Madeline book that makes me crazy because nobody pronounces the word like the word they are trying to rhyme it with. It LOOKS like it should rhyme but it doesn't the way Americans pronounce it. It is great practice to let kids try to fill in the blank at the end of rhyming text. I would even accept made up words if they rhyme!

So my point is...just read! There is no right or wrong way to do. You have to just do it. You have to make your kids do it. I love to read a good book but sometimes I don't let my kids know that. Bill likes to read the sports section of the paper, and ESPN magazine. I should let him do that in front of the kids so they know he reads. Kyra didn't really like to read until I made her do it. The summer before third grade she had to read for an hour while I put Tasha down for a nap each day. Now, she can be reading 3 books at one time. She has read a couple of stories twice because she really liked them. Tasha likes to hear the same story over and over and over and over and over....again until she has it memorized. I'm pretty sure she can "read" about the first 10 pages of The Cat in the Hat to you. In fact, today she wanted to know why it was so dark out. I told her it might rain and that the sun was hiding behind the clouds. She said, "the sun is not sunny?" She is always talking about "down the wall in the hall". See, that's one kid that won't have problems with the "all" words. Thanks Seuss!