8. Resource Hub: Teaching Articulation

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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/

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Antonio Fierro: On the vowel valley, I have all the vowel sounds of the English language. And we can start from a very tight smile, /ē/. Alright? And think about how is that sound made? How is that phoneme made? That's a tight smile, /ē/ ... I drop my chin just a little bit more /ĭ/, /ā/, /ĕ/, /ă/, /ī/, /ŏ/, /ŭ/, /aw/, /ō/, /oo/, /ōō/, and /ū/. But what about my diphthongs? /oy/, /ow/ ... And then my vowel-r's as well ... /er/, /ar/, /or/. And then there's that pesky schwa, /ə/, that can sound like a short 'i', I'm sorry, short 'u' ... /ŭ/ or this short 'i' ... /ĭ/.

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Louisa Moats: This is a lousy teaching thing that I did when I was a teacher. I had a fourth grader who was a lousy speller and was also low in reading — those things go hand in hand. And he was writing one day and he wrote 'w', 'e', 't' for went. The word went. It's very common ... you see kids mix up wet and went, and then when they write "went," they'll put a 'w, 'h' because they have not figured out which word is when and which word is went and what's the difference and so on. So he was writing 'w', 'e', 't' and I, in my naiveté, my ignorance, I said something like wet, went ... are those the same or different in an irritated tone of voice. And he said they're different.

And then I didn't know what to do. I had no understanding. So what I should have done — I now understand — what I should have done is say ... they all called the students sweetheart, honey, that kind of thing. Honey, hold your nose. Say the word went. Do you feel a buzz there? Now say wet. Do you feel any buzz there? No buzz. Okay. When you feel the buzz in your nose, it means there has to be one of our nosy sounds in that word. And I would have a consonant chart on the wall that has three nasal consonants in English, three nosy sounds in English, /m/, /n/, and /ŋ/ (/ng/ sound) ... the mystery sound nobody knows. And so if you say went and there's a nosy sound, which one do you think it is? That's what I should have said. But I hadn't done my doctorate yet to figure that out. This is not hard if you know what you're doing. I shouldn't have had to have Carol Chomsky teach me a language course to learn that. I should have learned that before they let me out the door to teach.

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Katina Johnson: Alright, friends, so you know, we have been working with digraphs, right? And we know that digraphs are ...

Students: Two letters that make one sound.

Katina Johnson: Yes. We've been working with digraphs ... two letters that make one sound. So we've had 'ch', what was that sound?

Students: /ch/ ...

Katina Johnson: We've had 'sh', what was that sound?

Students: /sh/ ...

Narrator: The digraph 'th' spells two sounds that are very similar. One is voiced, meaning your voice vibrates as you say it, like in that and in mother. The unvoiced 'th' is used in words like with and math. Watch as reading specialist Katina Johnson teaches her students how to articulate the unvoiced 'th' digraph.

Katina Johnson: Here is our digraph. It is 'th' ... but I want you to pay close attention. When we look at our form of sound card, we look at the digraph itself, that is ...

Students: Two letters that make one sound ...

Katina Johnson: And then we look. We look to see how the sound is made.

Narrator: Ms. Johnson gives her first graders plenty of chances to practice saying their new digraph, guiding them to feel the air from the unvoiced sound. They use mirrors to check that their mouths are in the correct position.

Katina Johnson: Ready? 'th' says ...

Ms. Johnson and students: /th/ ...

Katina Johnson: Perfect. Now you didn't feel it, but you made it. But I want you to feel it this time. Ready? 'th' says ...

Ms. Johnson and students: /th/ ...

Katina Johnson: Did you feel that air?

Students: Yes.

Katina Johnson: Yes, it is unvoiced that's why there's the red light. Now looking in your mirror. This is the sound. This is what you want to see ... 'th' says ... /th/ ... Good. Now look in your mirror this time ... 'th' says ...

Students: /th/ ...

Katina Johnson: Good.

Narrator: When students can confidently articulate the unvoiced digraph 'th' sound, they're well on their way to confidently spelling it and reading it.

Katina Johnson: Last time ...

Students: 'th' says ... /th/ ...

Katina Johnson: 'th' says ... /th/ ... alright, cool beans.

Students: Reading Universe is made possible by generous support from Jim & Donna Barksdale, the Hastings/Quillen Fund, an advised fund of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, the AFT, The Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation, and anonymous donors. Special thanks to the Toledo Federation of Teachers, Riverside Elementary School, and Toledo Public Schools in Toledo, Ohio. If you enjoyed this video, please subscribe to our YouTube channel @RUTeaching. Reading Universe is a service of WETA, Washington, D.C., the Barksdale Reading Institute, and First Book.

Katina Johnson: I'm Katina Johnson, and this is Reading Universe.