3.3 Explicitly Teach Schwa

This lesson is designed to be an introduction to schwa. All words in this first lesson have the schwa sound in the second syllable (as in wag-on and bas-ket). We recommend starting here because it allows students to use their knowledge of decoding multisyllabic words with words that have a closed syllable as the first syllable, something they have had a lot of practice with.

Now it's time to teach!

Say,

We have been learning to read and spell multisyllabic words. Sometimes words have a vowel sound that we don't expect. It is an empty sound like all of the stuffing has been taken out of the vowel. We call this sound schwa.

Have students say schwa. 

Write the word about on the board.

Say, 

This is the word about. When I tap the sounds in this word I hear /ə/ /b/ /ou/ /t/. 

The first sound /ə/ is not an expected sound for the letter 'a'. 

I would expect it to say /ā/ or /ă/. 

But it doesn't. It says the /ə/ sound — it's a schwa. 

Say,

Vowels can make a short sound, a long sound, and schwa. 

We know that a multisyllabic word is a word that has more than one what? [syllable] 

Yes, a multisyllabic word has more than one syllable. And syllables can either be stressed or unstressed. We put more attention or emphasis on the stressed syllables. The other part of the word is unstressed, and it is softer and does not get a lot of attention.

Today we are going to learn how to figure out which part of the word is stressed and getting a lot of attention and which part is unstressed. The strategy is called "Call the Dog". If I have a dog named Carson, when I need to call Carson to come into the house I say "Caaaaarson."

Can you "Call the Dog" with me? [Caaaaarson] 

Do you hear the part of the word that I say the loudest and stretch it out? 

What part is that? [Caaaaaar-]. 

Yes! The first syllable, Car-. I gave more attention to that part. That is the stressed syllable. The second syllable, -son, I didn't give as much attention to and said it a bit softer. That is our unstressed syllable. 

Let's practice calling the dog with some words to figure out the stressed and unstressed syllables.

Practice the "Call the Dog" strategy with the following words: wagon, basket, sandal, and cactus.

Say, 

When we "Call the Dog", we use all of our air or stuffing on the part we call the loudest. The other syllable gets all the stuffing taken out, and it can sound like /ŭ/ or /ĭ/, even if that is not the expected sound of the vowel. When this happens, we call it a schwa. Schwa is the sound that we hear in the unstressed syllable. When we hear a schwa in a syllable, it is taking the place of another vowel. Let's take a look at my dog's name Carson.

Write Carson on the board.

Let's practice calling Carson one more time. [Caaaaarson] 

Which part of that word was stressed? [Car-] 

Yes, the first syllable Car- is stressed, so the other syllable is unstressed. Did I say /car-sŏn/? [No] 

What vowel sound do I hear in this syllable? [/ĭ/] 

Yes! We hear that /ĭ/ sound in this syllable. The second syllable is the unstressed syllable so the vowel sound is taking the schwa sound. In this case, it is the /ĭ/ sound. Schwa usually sounds like /ĭ/ or /ŭ/. The vowel sound in the stressed syllable is going to be the sound we expect, but in the unstressed syllable that is where we can hear schwa. So in this word Carson, the 'o' in the unstressed syllable is taking the sound of another vowel, /ĭ/.

Schwa can take the place of any vowel in an unstressed syllable in a multisyllabic word.

Now we are going to practice finding the stressed syllable in some words by calling the dog. Then we will check to see if the unstressed syllable has a schwa.

Write the word mitten on the board.

Our first word is mitten. Let's "Call the Dog". [miiiiiiitten] 

What is our stressed syllable? [mit-] 

What vowel sound do we hear in the unstressed syllable? [/ĭ/] 

Is that a sound we expect for the letter 'e'? [no] 

So that is a schwa, let's circle it.

Continue the steps for the following words: camel, basket, common.

Steps:

1. Say the word and ask students to repeat it using the "Call the Dog" strategy.
2. Ask students, "What is the stressed syllable?"
3. Ask students, "What is the vowel sound we hear in the unstressed syllable?"
4. Ask students, "Is that an expected vowel sound for that letter?"
5. If not, then circle the letter to show it is a schwa.

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