1.1 Practice Pronouncing and Recognizing the Features of Phonemes
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Course 1: Phoneme Awareness for Paraprofessionals
1.1 Practice Pronouncing and Recognizing the Features of Phonemes
In this video, we get to see, hear, and feel how the /b/ sound is made. Notice the student friendly descriptions and instructions that reading specialist Morgan Walton uses as she teaches about the features of /b/.
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/.
Give it a try!
Listen to your own pronunciation when you say the sound /b/ out loud.
It’s easy to add an extra /ŭ/ sound to /b/, and then you’ll end up saying buh. That can make it hard when a child starts sounding out words or spelling them. Instead of blending /b/, /ă/, and /t/ into bat, they end up saying buh-a-tuh.
So you’ll want to avoid adding that extra uh sound when you’re talking about individual phonemes, especially with these: /b/, /d/, /p/, /w/, and /y/.
Here’s how they should sound:
/b/
/d/
/p/
/w/
/y/
Like Morgan Walton says in the video above, you may want to make a scissor motion with your hand near your mouth to encourage your children to make sure the sound is “clipped” … /b/, not buh.
Practice Your Pronunciation
In the following learning activity, you will say several English phonemes out loud, paying attention to how your mouth moves, where air flows, or whether your vocal cords vibrate when you say each one.
1. Feel your throat as you say the consonant sounds /b/ and /s/ out loud.
Listen to /b/, then repeat the sound out loud.
/b/
Listen to /s/, then repeat.
/s/
Do you feel a vibration? A voiced sound vibrates the vocal cords; an unvoiced sound does not.
Say these two sounds again: /b/ and /s/. Which one is voiced? Which one is unvoiced?
/b/ is an example of a voiced sound.
/s/ is an example of an unvoiced sound.
Be careful! You may find that you are voicing sounds that are actually unvoiced!
The ‘th’ spelling actually has two sounds. In the word them, you’ll hear a voiced ‘th’ (feel the buzz in your voice box), and we represent that sound with /TH/.
them
In the word with, you’ll hear an unvoiced ‘th’ (no buzz in your voice box), and we represent that sound with /th/.
with
Both sounds are spelled the same — ‘th’ — but remember: those letters can make two different sounds.
The sounds /k/, /h/, and /p/ are all unvoiced. Often, people mistakenly add an /ŭ/ sound to the end of the phoneme, which makes the sound voiced. Be careful when you say it in isolation not to turn /k/ into kuh.
2. Feel your throat as you say the short ‘a’ and long ‘e’ sounds out loud.
What do you notice? You should feel a vibration because all vowel phonemes are voiced.
Say the word apple slowly to notice the short ‘a’ sound.
apple
Say the word eagle slowly to notice the long ‘e’ sound.
eagle
We need vowels to pronounce words. Every syllable in a word has a vowel sound.
3. Look at your mouth in a mirror as you say the /p/ sound out loud.
Listen and repeat out loud the consonant /p/ sound.
/p/
What is your tongue doing when you say the sounds? Is it tapping somewhere in your mouth? Is it flattened? In the back of your mouth or in the front?
Pay attention to how you move your teeth, lips, and jaw as you say the phoneme. For example, your lips close together to make the /p/ sound.
4. Look at your mouth in a mirror as you say the /n/ sound out loud.
Listen to /n/, then repeat the sound out loud.
/n/
What is your tongue doing when you say the sounds? Is it tapping somewhere in your mouth? Is it flattened? In the back of your mouth or in the front?
Also pay attention to how you move your teeth, lips, and jaw as you say each phoneme. For example, your tongue goes up to the roof of your mouth just behind your teeth to make the /n/ sound.
5. Look at your mouth in a mirror as you say the short 'i' and short 'o' out loud.
/ĭ/
/ŏ/
What is your tongue doing when you say the sounds? Is it tapping somewhere in your mouth? Is it flattened? In the back of your mouth or in the front?
Also pay attention to how you move your teeth, lips, and jaw as you say each phoneme. For example, does your jaw drops or lifts when you say the long ‘i’ and ‘o’ vowel sounds.
6. Feel the air flow through your mouth and nose as you say the /n/ and /k/ sounds out loud.
Listen to /n/, then repeat the sound out loud.
/n/
Listen to /k/, then repeat the sound out loud.
/k/
How does air flow through your mouth and nose as you say each sound?
Both nasal and oral sounds are made at the back of the mouth, but the airflow is different. Pinch your nose when you say each sound. If you are unable to voice the sound with your nose pinched, it is a nasal sound. Air needs to flow through the nasal cavity to make nasal sounds!
Nasal sounds have airflow through the nose. /m/, /n/, and /ng/ like in sink, are the only nasal sounds.
Oral sounds have airflow through the mouth. All the other phonemes are oral sounds.
7. Feel the air flow through your mouth as you say the /f/ and /b/ sounds out loud.
Listen to /f/ , then repeat the sound out loud.
/f/
Listen to /b/, then repeat the sound out loud.
/b/
What do you notice? Airflow through the mouth with oral sounds may be continuous or stopped.
/f/ is an example of a consonant that is a continuant sound. Some consonants and all vowels are continuant sounds.
/b/ is an example of a stop sound.
Teaching Guides and Wall Chart
The printable resources below provide descriptions of the articulation features and common spellings for 44+ phonemes. Print and keep these nearby when you are working on phoneme articulation with your students.
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.
If you work with younger children, the Vowel Valley and our Guide to Letters and Sounds will support your teaching of articulation features.
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.
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!
You just covered a lot of information about the English phonemes! Let’s take a moment for you to check your knowledge about phonemes on the next page.
Practice Your Pronunciation
