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1.1 Practice Pronouncing and Recognizing the Features of Phonemes

Course

Course 1: Phoneme Awareness for Paraprofessionals

Video thumbnail for Teaching the ‘b’ Sound
Produced by Reading Universe, a partnership of WETA, Barksdale Reading Institute, and First Book
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Morgan Walton: When we teach our students how to make sounds, it's really helpful to offer cues that help them to see, hear, and feel how the sound is produced. We can also use these cues to correct any sounds that are mispronounced. I'm going to model how to teach the sound of the letter 'b' using these cues. 'B' spells the sound /b/. We call /b/ a lip popping sound because when we say it, we keep our mouth closed and our lips together until they pop open with a burst of air as the sound is made. Let's all say that lip popping sound, /b/. When we say /b/, the voice box is turned on and it feels like we have a motor in our throat. Touch your throat while you say the sound /b/. Do you feel that vibration? Hear how quickly we pronounce the sound /b/. It's a sound that we need to clip off so we don't say /u/ at the end. Let's practice the clipping sound, /b/. OK. What sound does 'b' spell? /b/.

/b/

/d/

/p/

/w/

/y/

/b/

/s/

them

with

apple

eagle

/p/

/n/

/ĭ/

/ŏ/

/n/

/k/

/f/

/b/

Consonant Pairs to Teach Similar Sounds

This guide describes consonant pairs, a common and effective teaching strategy for helping students who confuse similar sounds and may benefit from additional phoneme instruction.

Download Guide
vowel valley printable chart

Vowel Valley

This wall chart includes photos and word examples for each vowel phoneme. You may recognize many of the examples from this chart that is often used in early elementary grades. 

Download Chart

A Guide for Teaching the Letters and Sounds

Use this guide with PreK-2 classroom children who might need more support with sound production.

Download Guide

Paras Know!

Tricky Phonemes in Box

Sometimes two separate phonemes pair up to form a single spoken sound. For example, the two phonemes /k/ and /s/ combine to make the last sound in the word box. 

Identifying the two sounds separately can be tricky, and it’s important for paraprofessionals to be aware of these “hidden phoneme” examples. That way you’ll know what a student is thinking when they spell the word quilt as ‘k-w-i-l-t’ … or the word fox as ‘f-o-k-s’! 

Tricky Phonemes in Sink 

The nasal sound /ng/ hides in some words. Say sink. The phonemes in sink are /s/ /i/ /ng/ /k/. The phoneme for n is /ng/. Say sink again and feel how your tongue lifts up in the back so that the /ng/ sound comes through your nose. The phoneme for n is always /ng/ when followed by /k/. This is true for the spellings -ink, -ank, -onk, and -unk.

These spelling examples show us how well our students can segment the sounds in words. Even though children might spell words like these incorrectly, it shows us how well they can segment sounds!

Reading Universe is made possible by generous support from Jim & Donna Barksdale; the Hastings/Quillin Fund, an advised fund of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation (opens in new window); the AFT (opens in new window); the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation (opens in new window); and three anonymous donors.