9. Resource Hub: Teaching Short Vowel Sounds
Short Vowels Skill Explainer
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Fadia Olrich: Good morning, everybody.
Narrator: Today, teacher Fadia Olrich will teach the short /ŭ/ sound to our kindergartners. She begins this phonics lesson with a listening game to help her students hear all the sounds and words.
Fadia Olrich: So we've been working on blending sounds together to make words, right?
Students: Yes.
Fadia Olrich: Yeah. So we've been using different strategies like the Stretching-Out Strategy, right? So let's practice real quick. So like the word bat ... repeat ...
Ms. Olrich and students: bat ... /b/, /ă/, /t/ ... "bat ....
Fadia Olrich: And we've also done the Tap-It-Out Strategy. Let's try that. Let's try the word bat again. Say Bat, bat ...
Ms. Olrich and students: bat ... /b/, /ă/, /t/ ... bat ....
Fadia Olrich: Well, guess what? We're going to learn a whole other strategy as well. This is the Rollercoaster Strategy. Isn't that cool?
Students: Yeah.
Fadia Olrich: So the rollercoaster strategy helps us figure out the sounds and words, especially the middle vowel sound. So watch this first word. This word is "met." Say met ...
Students: met ...
Fadia Olrich: So watch what I do. I'm going to start at the bottom of the rollercoaster ...
Ms. Olrich and students: /m/, /ĕ/, /t/ ... met ...
Fadia Olrich: Good. Let's do the word hat. You ready? Repeat after me, hat ...
Students: hat ...
Fadia Olrich: All right. Finger at the bottom of the rollercoaster ...
Ms. Olrich and students: /h/, /ă/, /t/, hat ...
Fadia Olrich: Good. All right. So the next thing we're going to do is we're going to practice our letters and letter sounds, okay? All right. What letter is this?
Students: 't' ...
Fadia Olrich: 't' says /t/ ...
Narrator: Now Ms. Ulrich runs through these letter flashcards to help her students build automaticity with naming letters and sounds.
Fadia Olrich: 'i' says /ĭ/ ... Good job, friends.
Ms. Olrich and students: 'm' says /m/ ...
Narrator: Next, Ms. Ulrich will provide direct, explicit instruction in the short 'u' vowel sound, including how to make the sound.
Fadia Olrich: This is letter 'u'. Can you say you 'u'?
Ms. Olrich and students: 'u' ...
Fadia Olrich: And 'u' says /ŭ/ for umbrella. Can you say umbrella?
Students: umbrella ...
Fadia Olrich: Do you hear the /ŭ/ sound, in umbrella?
Students: Yes ...
Fadia Olrich: Yes. So what we're going to do is I'm going to give you a mirror and we're going to practice making the /ŭ/ sound with our mirrors. Sound good?
Students: Yeah.
Fadia Olrich: Okay. Go ahead and open up your mirror. You can do one quick smile, cheese. Very good. Look at those beautiful smiles. Look at your mirror. And I want you to find your mouth. You see your mouth in your mirror? Look very carefully. You got it? All right. So say the /ŭ/ sound.
Students: /ŭ/ ...
Fadia Olrich: Now look at your mouth. Is it open or is it closed?
Students: Open ...
Fadia Olrich: Yep. Kaeylina?
Kaeylina: Open.
Fadia Olrich: It's open. All right. Try it again. Say, /ŭ/ ...
Students: /ŭ/ ...
Fadia Olrich: Good. Now your tongue is at the bottom of your mouth. It's relaxed and it's touching the bottom of your teeth, right? Now, touch your throat and say /ŭ/ ...
Students: /ŭ/ ...
Fadia Olrich: Did you feel a vibration when you made the ah sound?
Students: Yes ...
Fadia Olrich: Yes, so it's a voiced sound, right? All right. Ready? Look at your mirror. All right, say up ...
Students: up ..
Fadia Olrich: upstairs ...
Students: upstairs ...
Fadia Olrich: unfair ...
Students: unfair ...
Fadia Olrich: And now we're going to say words that have the /ŭ/ sound in the middle of the word. Okay? So look at your mirror. Say hum ...
Students: hum ...
Fadia Olrich: Now look at your mouth ... /h/ /ŭ/, /m/. You see the /ŭ/ sound that you're making, and you hear it? All right. Good. Now try your rollercoaster. Ready? Start at the bottom. Let's write through the word hum again. Ready?
Ms. Olrich and students: /h/, /ŭ/, /m/ ... hum ...
Fadia Olrich: Let's try bug. Ready?
Ms. Olrich and students: /b/, /ŭ/, /g/ ... bug ...
Fadia Olrich: Do you hear ...
Narrator: Ms. Ulrich ends today's lesson by having the children blend sounds together to read words with the short 'u' sound.
Fadia Olrich: So now we're going to read some words that have the /ŭ/ sound in them to practice because you guys are rock stars with the /ŭ/ sound, aren't you?
Students: Yeah.
Fadia Olrich: So again, you says, /ŭ/ ...
Students: /ŭ/ ...
Fadia Olrich: All right. So let's practice this word. Ready?
Ms. Olrich and students: /h/, /ŭ/, /t/ ... hut ...
Fadia Olrich: Let's try another word. So remember, this can be real or a nonsense word. So let's see. What letter is this?
Ms. Olrich and students: 'd' ...
Fadia Olrich: And 'd' says /d/ ... ready?
Ms. Olrich and students: /d/, /ŭ/, /t/ ... dut ...
Fadia Olrich: Is that a real or nonsense word?
Ms. Olrich and students: Nonsense word ...
Fadia Olrich: All right, let's try this word. What letter is this? 'g' ...
Students: 'g' ...
Fadia Olrich: And 'g' says /g/ ... Ready?
Ms. Olrich and students: /g/, /ŭ/, /t/ ... gut ...
Narrator: The structure of this short /ŭ/ phonics lesson, starting with sounds, moving to letters, and ending with reading words helps children develop the skills they need to become strong readers.
Ms. Olrich and students: /c/, /ŭ/, /t/ ... cut ...
Fadia Olrich: You are awesome. Yay. All right. Good job, friends. Yay!
Narrator: Enjoyed this video? Don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel @RUTeaching. For more information, please visit ReadingUniverse.org. Special thanks to the Toledo Federation of Teachers, Riverside Elementary School, and Toledo Public Schools in Toledo, Ohio. Reading Universe is made possible by generous support from Jim & Donna Barksdale, the American Federation of Teachers, The Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation, and three anonymous donors. Reading Universe is a service of WETA, Washington, D.C., The Barksdale Reading Institute, and First Book.
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Carla Miller: Okay, friends, so today what we're going to do is we're going to start by drilling our deck. So what you need to do is take out your tracers. Okay. So we're going to go ahead and drill the cart Ready?
Ms. Miller and students: 's', snakes, /s/
Narrator: Today instructional coach Carla Miller will be working on blending sounds with her kindergartners. She begins the phonics lesson with a warm-up, running through flashcards with keyword pictures. This daily practice helps ensure children master the sound of each letter.
Ms. Miller and students: 'i', itch, /ĭ/
Carla Miller: Who can raise her hand and tell me why is this a different color? Why is this a different color, Hadley?
Hadley: Because it's a vowel.
Carla Miller: Tell me about a vowel. What's a vowel?
Hadley: It's something that has to be in a word.
Carla Miller: Very good, very good. Let's keep going.
Ms. Miller and students: 'o', octopus, /ŏ/
Carla Miller: I love those octopus arms.
Ms. Miller and students: 'm', man, /m/
Carla Miller: Okay, you guys did that so well that we are going to try it with my itty-bitty baby deck. Okay? And this time there are no pictures. So we're just going to say the name of the letter and the sound. Are you ready?
Students: Yes.
Ms. Miller and students: 'z', /z/
Narrator: Next, she uses flashcards with no pictures to ensure the children can read the sound automatically in isolation.
Carla Miller: Good.
Students: 'a', /ă/, 't', /t/, 'c', /c/
Narrator: Ms. Miller provides quick, direct, explicit instruction to correct errors.
Students: 'b' ...
Carla Miller: Oh, let's look again. It says straight back big belly /b/. Let's do it together.
Ms. Miller and students: 'b', /b/ ...
Carla Miller: Very good.
Ms. Miller and students: 'm', /m/
Carla Miller: So what we're going to do today is we're going to have some fun making words. Are you ready to make words?
Students: Yes.
Carla Miller: Okay, here we go. Some of the words are going to be real words and some might be nonsense words. Who knows what a nonsense word is? Tell me, Ilya.
Ilia: They're words that are not real.
Carla Miller: Words that are not real. They do not make any sense. Avery already told us that our blue letters are different. What's different about the blue letters, Shane?
Shane: The vowels.
Carla Miller: They're vowels. Very good. Okay, we're going to start by just reading a word. Okay. We're going to say each sound in the word, and then I'm going to move them a little bit closer together, and then we're going to say the sounds and then I'm going to move 'em a little closer together, but we're not going to read it until they are touching and I say "catch it." Are you ready?
Students: Yes.
Carla Miller: Okay. So I want to hear everybody's voice. Let's do it.
Students: /s/, /ă/, /t/
Carla Miller: Listen for the word. Are you guys ready? We're going to catch it this time ... they're touching
Students: /s/, /ă/, /t/ ... sat.
Carla Miller: Good. Okay. What word was that?
Students: Sat.
Carla Miller: Sat. Okay. I want everybody to pay attention. I might ask you to read this same word. Okay. Ready? So what word was this one more time, Avery.
Avery: Sat.
Carla Miller: Sat. What did I just do?
Ilia: Cat
Carla Miller:
Good. What word did she read?
Hadley: Cat
Carla Miller: Good. What did I just do?
Narrator: Ms. Miller models and practices the step-by-step process for blending sounds into words. All the words she chooses for blending contain the sounds the children just practiced with their flashcards. Each child has an opportunity to do the work of blending sounds.
Ilia: /n/, /ĭ/, nip.
Carla Miller: I love how you tapped that word out. Excellent. What word did she just read?
Students: nip ... nap ...
Carla Miller: Well, let's tap it together.
Ms. Miller and students: /n/, /ĭ/, nip.
Carla Miller: Excellent. What did I just do?
Avery: d/, /ĭ/, /p/ ... dip.
Carla Miller: Excellent. I'm moving over here to you. What word did he read?
Hadley: Dip.
Carla Miller: What word do we have now?
Hadley: Hip.
Carla Miller: Excellent. What word is this?
Shane: Hip.
Carla Miller: Hip. Good. I'm going to change my vowel in the middle again. Are you ready?
Shane: Hop.
Carla Miller: Hop. Excellent. We're going ...
Narrator: Children work at their own pace. Some do the work of tapping and blending aloud. Some do it in their heads.
Carla Miller: Ilia, what word?
Ilia: Bop.
Carla Miller: Okay. What's this word?
Ilia: /m/, /ŏ/, mop.
Carla Miller: Excellent. I love how you pulled it together at the end. Let's go ahead as a group. Can everybody see my words?
Students: Yeah.
Carla Miller: Okay. We might run into some crazy nonsense words. Okay? Silly words that don't make sense while I do this, but let's do it. We're going to tap and read.
Ms. Miller and students: /m/, / ĭ/, /p/ ... mip ...
Narrator: The lesson ends with more practice with everyone tapping and reading words together.
Carla Miller: Let's look at this one more time. This is a straight back big belly. What letter is this?
Students: 'b'
Carla Miller: What sound does 'b' make?
Students: /b/
Carla Miller: Let's try that again.
Ms. Miller and students: /b/, / ĭ/, /p/ ... bip ...
Carla Miller: Good. Is that a real word or a nonsense word?
Students: Nonsense.
Carla Miller: All day long. Let's go to the next one.
Ms. Miller and students: /h/, / ĭ/, /p/ ... hip ...
Carla Miller: Hip. Good. Real or nonsense?
Students: Real.
Carla Miller: Real. Put your hands on your hips. Excellent. You guys did an amazing job blending our words. You're such great readers. I love it. Give yourself a little shine. Shine. I'll give you shine ...
Narrator: Enjoy this video? Don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel @RUTeaching. For more information, please visit ReadingUniverse.org. Special thanks to Burgess-Peterson Academy and Atlanta Public Schools. Reading Universe is made possible by generous support from Jim & Donna Barksdale, the American Federation of Teachers, the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation, and three anonymous donors. Reading Universe is a service of WETA, Washington, DC, the Barksdale Reading Institute, and First Book.
Carla Miller: This is Reading Universe.
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Estella Escajeda: So, everybody get your magical popsicle sticks. You're going to need your magical popsicle sticks to follow along.
Narrator: In this part of Esella Escajeda's lesson on the short 'e' and short 'i' vowel sounds, students now will read phrases . They're building on the spelling they did earlier in the lesson. Scaffolding learning in this way develops accuracy and supports fluency.
Estella Escajeda: We're going to read these phrases three times, okay? So, these are phrases, they're not sentences, remember they're phrases. We're going to read it three times. The first time we're going to read it to be sure we read the word correctly. The second time, we're going to make sure we read it at a good speed — not too fast and
Students: ... not too slow.
Estella Escajeda: Right? ... Not too slow. And then the third time, we're going to read it, we're going to make sure that what we read matches what the words are trying to tell us. Are we ready? Okay, so we're going to go across, okay? The first one is "in the bed."
Students: "in the bed" ..."the big net" ... "is not wet" ...
Narrator: Ms. Escajeda leads her third graders in guided oral reading, which helps students with accuracy, speed, and expression — or fluent reading. It's a bridge between word recognition and reading comprehension.
Ms. Escajeda and students: "a red pen" ...
Estella Escajeda: Good job. How do you think we did?
Students: Good ...
Estella Escajeda: I think we did good.
Narrator: If you enjoyed this video, please subscribe to our YouTube channel @RUTeaching. For more information, please visit ReadingUniverse.org. Special thanks to Loma Linda Elementary School, Vado Elementary School, the Gadsden Independent School District, and the New Mexico Public Education Department. Reading Universe is made possible by generous support from Jim & Donna Barksdale, the American Federation of Teachers, The Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation, and anonymous donors. Reading Universe is a service of WETA, Washington, D.C., The Barksdale Reading Institute, and First Book.
