1. An Overview of Schwa

Schwa is an unexpected vowel sound that occurs in an unstressed syllable, primarily in multisyllabic words. 

Anyone who speaks English is very familiar with the schwa sound. It's the /ŭ/ at the end of pizza … with the short 'u' sound spelled by an 'a'. It's the most common vowel sound in casual conversation. It's even in the word vowel … and the word even! 

What do you mean any vowel can be a schwa? 'A' can say uh?

Teaching schwa to your students is an exercise in flexibility, for you and for them. You and your colleagues have spent weeks and months teaching them predictable rules for sound-letter correspondence, and along comes schwa which can change the sound of any vowel. 

So it's important that our kids learn to read and spell words with schwa. And with direct and explicit instruction, filled with lots of opportunities to practice, you can give them the skills they need to handle it.

Keep these five main points in mind as you work through this skill explainer:

1. Vowels can make three sounds: short, long, and schwa.
2. The schwa sound is like a shortened /ŭ/ or /ĭ/.
3. Any vowel can spell schwa: 'a', 'e', 'i', 'o', 'u', and 'y'.
4. The schwa is always in an unstressed or unemphasized syllable. For example, the /ŭ/ in about and the /ĭ/ in carpet.
5. If you don't have a particular schwa word in your vocabulary (anathema, anybody?), it's almost impossible to read it or to spell it without support.

We'll explain here what you need to know before you teach … adding to your teacher knowledge. And we'll show you how to teach it in the How to Teach Schwa section later.

Let's begin with a focus on oral language. 

The vowel sound in the first syllable of salad is clear. 

sal- … /săl/

It makes the expected sound for that syllable type, in this case a short vowel sound in a closed syllable.

But the vowel in the second syllable of salad is making an unexpected sound. 

/ĭd/ … /əd/

You would expect the 'a' in the second syllable of salad to be a short 'a', like in mad or fad, for example. But it's not. It's kind of like a short 'i', but not exactly … it's brief, almost swallowed, like half a sound.

We call that unexpected sound schwa. And you'll find it in unstressed syllables: the last syllable of lemon has schwa, as does the first syllable of balloon.

Words with schwa can be hard to read and even harder to spell, because any vowel can spell schwa … 'a', 'e', 'i', 'o', 'u', and, yes, 'y'. 

'a' – salad

'e' – basket

'i' – fossil

'o' – cotton 

'u' – cactus

'y' – vinyl

We can open a box to see the content inside. 

OR

We can feel content.  

Readers need to use the context of the sentence to decide the pronunciation — being flexible with their knowledge of vowel sounds, schwa, and the meaning of the word. In this skill explainer we will teach you a strategy, the "Call the Dog" strategy, to help students identify the stressed and unstressed syllables in words. This, along with the context of the sentence and being flexible with the vowel sound, will provide students with the tools to accurately read words with the schwa sound in any syllable.

Recognizing Patterns in Words with Schwa

So, how do we learn to read and spell all these words? Do we need to memorize every word with schwa? Luckily no! Our brains are pattern seeking. The more students read, the more words they are exposed to. This helps them get to a close pronunciation of a new word, as long as that is part of their mental dictionary … words that they've heard or read before. For example, once they've learned to read a word like basket, they will be able to read words like jacket, racket, pocket, rocket, and ticket — all words with schwa in the second syllable!

Applying This New Knowledge

Once you've explained to your students what schwa is and how it works, some readers may pick it up quickly and be able to apply their understanding easily, as with any phonics concept. This typically happens because they are seeing these words over and over in their reading. Their pronunciation may not be perfect for higher-level vocabulary words, but you can help students to quickly correct that. For students who still rely heavily on decoding each sound in words, reading and spelling schwa will take a lot of practice. Later, we'll outline some strategies to consider in selecting a Teaching Strategy and Students Who Need Additional Support.