44 Phonemes

Hi, I’m Yvette, facilitator at the Rollins Center for Language and Literacy. You probably already know the English language has very distinct sounds – or phonemes - that we combine in different ways to make words. In this video, we are going to demonstrate how to pronounce each of the individual phonemes. Often, we accidentally add an extra or /schwa/ sound to the end of consonants. If students hear this and imitate it, it may then be reflected in later reading and writing tasks. To prevent this, it is important to produce only the phoneme itself – without any additional sounds. An example of this is the sound /p/ Sometimes when teachers are trying to emphasize or isolate phoneme they say /puh/. Instead, focus on producing just the phoneme itself /p/. We’ll start with the consonant phonemes – you’ll see the associated letter or letter combination- also known as grapheme -on the screen as say the sound. Ready? Here we go! /b/ ….as in banana /d/….as in dinosaur /f/…..as in fish /g/….as in guitar /h/….as in hand /j/….as in jelly /k/…..as in car /l/….as in leaf /m/…as in Monday /n/…as in nail /ng/….as in the end of the word sing /p/….as in pumpkin /r/….as in rain /s/…. as in sun /zh/… as in the middle of treasure /t/… as in turtle /v/… as in volcano /w/….as in watch /y/….as in yo-yo /z/….as in zip Some graphemes such as and are composed of two phonemes. For example, makes the /kw/ sound and makes the /ks/ sound. The next phonemes are considered to be digraphs, where two letters make one sound. /ch/….as in child /sh/….as in shoes /th/…..as in the middle of mother /th/….as in third Make sure students hear you pronounce phonemes correctly. You’re modeling the language that they need to independently decode and write words. Just like the consonants, the English language has wide variety of vowel phonemes with their own distinct sounds. I’ll model each sound and the grapheme will be shown on the screen below. /a/ .…. as in the first sound in apple /e/.…..as in the first sound in elephant /i/……as in the first sound in igloo /o/……as in the first sound in octopus /u/……as in the first sound in umbrella /ae/…..as in middle sound in rain /aw/…as in the final sound in saw /ee/…..as in the final sound in tree /ie/…..as in the middle sound in light /oa/…..as in the middle sound in boat /ue/…..as in the first sound in uniform /oo/….as in the middle sound in mood /oo/….as in the middle sound in book /ou/….as in the final sound in cow /oi/……as in the final sound in boy There also r-controlled vowels such as /ar/…is in the final sound in car /er/…as in the middle sounds in herd, bird, and surf /air/….as in the final sound in chair /ear/….as in the final sound in spear /or/….as in the middle sound in fork Sometimes when vowel sound is located in the unstressed syllable of word, it becomes schwa. An example of this is the /uh/ that you hear as in the first sound of the word again. Make sure that students hear you model the correct consonant and vowel phonemes This will help them produce the correct sounds themselves and in turn, guide them as they learn to read and write.