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'y' as a Vowel Skill Explainer

Build-a-Word: Spelling 'y' as a Vowel

Video thumbnail for Build-a-Word: Spelling with 'y' as a Vowel — Produced by Reading Universe, a partnership of WETA, Barksdale Reading Institute, and First Book

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Antonio Fierro: Let's use the build-a-word strategy, working with open syllables. The word is cry. "Don't make me cry." What's the word? Cry. Let's see how many phonemes are in the word cry ... /c/, /r/, /ī/ ... /c/, /r/, /ī/. There are three phonemes, so we have three lines ... /c/, /r/, /ī/. Which grapheme represents that first phoneme, that /c/? The 'c'. The second phoneme is /r/, which grapheme? Ah, 'r'. And the last phoneme here in the word "cry" is /ī/, but this is a one-syllable word, and at the end of a one-syllable word that long /ī/ sound is usually represented by the letter 'y'. Let's spell that ... cry ... 'c', 'r', 'y'. Cry.

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Support Materials

Elkonin Sound Box Templates for Phoneme Segmentation

Download this free set of Elkonin boxes to give students practice segmenting phonemes, or sounds.

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Y as a Vowel: List of Words, Phrases, and Sentences for Lesson Planning

Our word lists can help you plan for teaching 'y' as a vowel. Use them in your reading, spelling, and fluency lessons and activities.

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