You will notice in my short vowel sound action posters that they have the letter name and the sound. After all, our language primarily starts with speaking. This is the best way for children to form strong connections in their brains to the sounds of our language and the code we use to read and write. Notice I introduce the letter sound first.Once a child is familiar with the sounds and able to use actions to show what they can hear in words, I will then introduce them to the letter / alphabetic code that represents the sound.This is why it is important to also teach your children the letter names as well as the letter sounds. The line on top of the letter is a symbol that shows us that the ‘a’ is saying its long sound, its name. So the long vowel sound for A is its name ᾱ. A long vowel sound is when the letter says its name. You can stretch out the short vowel sound for ‘a’ and it doesn’t become a long vowel. It has nothing to do with how long you stretch the sound out. What is the difference between short and long vowels? (Just for future reference in this blogpost, when you see these straight brackets around letters, it refers to the sound that the letter makes / /.) Get your students to try out these actions to learn the short vowel sounds. The actions that I have found most helpful for my students are listed below. I like to give students actions for these short vowel sounds to help them become automatic. Short vowel sounds are the sounds that our vowels make when they are by themselves and when they are closed in by a consonant. The short vowels are what we teach children first and I often find that they are also one of the most common forms of confusion in reading and spelling. The vowel sounds help us to blend those closed sounds (consonants) together to make words. In fact a word cannot be a word without a vowel sound. This is why our vowels are the super power sounds in our language. The ‘c’ closes at the back of your tongue and the ‘t’ closes with your teeth, WOW!! c a t Try slowly sounding out this word and see how both the /c/ and the /t/ closes at some point in your mouth. It is not until you add the vowel sound that the air can escape. However, if you say the /c/ sound you will notice that your tongue lifts up and closes the opening to your throat. Like me, you may start going through the alphabet to test it out and get to the letter ‘c’ and say, ‘aha’, you have to open your mouth for the ‘c’ sound, (as I did too). Did you know that… A vowel sound opens your mouth and a consonant closes your mouth. This next bit of information may blow your mind as it did mine when I first learnt about it. Have you ever tried to say the word ‘cat’ without opening your mouth? Go on, have a try! It’s impossible isn’t it. However, before diving into exactly what short vowel sounds are, we first need to understand the importance of all of our vowel sounds in English. They are one of the most important things to teach children as they begin their reading journey. So what are short vowel sounds? Let me tell you. Short vowel sounds are what I call the superheroes of reading!
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