Are You Pronouncing Letter Sounds Accurately?

Teaching children the correct letter sounds is an important part of teaching beginning readers. When you are modeling the individual sounds that letters make, you must pronounce them in a way that makes them “blendable.”

Be careful not to add a vowel sound such as a schwa (an uh sound) or a short u sound after each individual sound. For example, when sounding out the word bat, you want to say /b/ /a/ /t/ not buh – a – tuh. We want to present students with the “clipped” sound without any additional sounds tacked on!

Asking students to blend sounds is hard work! It becomes a lot harder for students if they are hearing the sounds pronounced incorrectly.  This video pronunciation guide may be helpful to you. Hang in there -- the consonants start about half way through the brief video. And here’s a handy chart for your reference! DOWNLOAD THE CHART

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