3.2 Teaching Strategies for Schwa

Since we know that schwa appears only in unstressed syllables, your students will need to know how to quickly identify stressed and unstressed syllables. That will be their clue to consider an unexpected vowel sound-letter correspondence. We do this orally to help listen to the stress pattern in words with a fun strategy.

To help students learn to hear and identify the stress pattern in a word, we can use a strategy called "Call the Dog." If I'm trying to call my dog Ruby from the backyard I would yell "Ruuuuuuuuuuby." The syllable that I yell the loudest and stretch out is the stressed syllable. In this case it's the first syllable, Ru-, /rū/. The second syllable, -by, /bē/, is said quieter and is not stretched out — so it is unstressed. We can use this to help us think about where the schwa might occur in a word. 

Once your students can identify unstressed syllables, they're ready to try reading words with schwa. We start with reading first (before spelling) because reading words with schwa is easier than spelling them. And with time, it can provide them access to many, many complex words.

Here is how you might practice the "Call the Dog" strategy with your students.

Say,

The word is magnet. Say magnet. [magnet] 

Now, let's pretend our dog's name is Magnet. Let's call our dog, Magnet. Maaaaaagnet. Which syllable did we say loudest and stretch out? [mag-] 

Yes, the first syllable mag- is our stressed syllable; so our second syllable, -net, is unstressed, and we hear the schwa sound, /ĭ/, for the vowel sound in that unstressed second syllable.

Learning to spell words with schwa is a tricky process. Students will need a lot of practice reading these words first. It will help them recognize correct spelling when they write it. Otherwise, their usual encoding skills will not alert them to a problem. If you're trying to write the word method without already knowing how it's spelled, writing methid with an 'i' would be perfectly reasonable, since the sounds in the second syllable are /ĭ/, /d/.

But there is an effective approach you can offer your students to help with spelling words with schwa.

Use Your "Spelling Voice."

We can teach students to use their "spelling voice" and pronounce a word the way it is spelled to help us spell it accurately. The ultimate goal is for students to be able to spell these tricky words correctly.

Even as proficiently reading adults, we use some of these strategies to help us spell words! For example, you might use your spelling voice by thinking in your brain /mĕth-ŏd/, emphasizing the short 'o' sound in the second closed syllable to correctly spell the word method, with an 'o'. 

This should only be used once a student can accurately read a word and knows the correct pronunciation. If it's a new word and they're not firm in their pronunciation, they may continue to pronounce it wrong.

To scaffold support with spelling words with schwa during your daily dictation practice, you might consider using this routine:

Say,

The word is sudden. Say, sudden. [sudden] 

Let's break that into syllables, /sŭd-dĭn/. The first syllable, sud- is spelled how we expect it. Tap the sounds to write sŭd-.

Students write 's', 'u', 'd'.

Say, 

The second syllable -dĭn, has a schwa. If we say it with our "spelling voice", it is -dĕn. Tap the sounds to write -dĕn.

Students write 'd', 'e', 'n'.

Say, 

Now read the word.

Students read sudden.