2. When to Teach Schwa

Schwa is a concept that unfolds as students learn more and more about the English language. Once students know how to read and spell multisyllabic words, they will be ready to learn about schwa. 

Here's a reminder of where you are on our phonics continuum — what you've taught and what's coming up. This is not the only way to do things, and many programs will teach skills in a different order. That's okay, as long as students learn all the skills.

We recommend introducing schwa in second grade as it relates to spelling because that is when it becomes most important and needed as students are writing longer words. However, all teachers should understand how the schwa sound functions to help explain to students why a letter is making an unexpected sound. 

For example, consider the word about. Kindergarten and first-grade students might be writing all about me or all about a particular animal. They often will spell about with the letter 'u' at the beginning. Even though younger students are not ready to learn about schwa, teachers can explain that the vowel is making an unexpected sound there and that we call that sound schwa, letting students know they will learn more about that later. English is a language full of patterns and while schwa might feel like it is irregular, we can teach students when to anticipate it in words and prevent the impression that English is an irregular language.

You may introduce reading words with schwa later in first grade or early second grade. As students are reading words like basket and problem, you can explain what is happening in our mouth, teach the "Call the Dog" strategy, and model how we flex the vowel to read a word that we know.

Before learning about schwa, students should be able to:

• Read and spell one-syllable closed syllable words
• Read and spell words with blends and digraphs
• Read and spell two-syllable short vowel words without schwa

The structured literacy approach is systematic and cumulative. That means each time we teach a new phonics skill, we need to consider how it interacts with skills that students have already learned. We should explicitly make these connections for students.

We now can put a name to the vowel sound in irregularly spelled words like the, of, and a. These function words in sentences typically do not carry a lot of meaning, so we do not emphasize them in our speech, often resulting in the vowel being schwa.

We have already taught students how to read and spell multisyllabic words that are decodable and do not have schwa, like index or goblin. Now we can build upon that understanding to help students decode multisyllabic words with schwa. Here are some of the types of multisyllabic words with schwa that students may encounter and the order they are often taught:

• Schwa in the second syllable, like across and seven
• Schwa in the first syllable, like delay and today
• Schwa in the second syllable and spelled with the letter 'a', like extra and sofa
• Schwa in the first syllable and spelled with the letter 'a', like about and away

Schwa can also be found in vowel teams, like mountain, jealous, and ocean. Once students are familiar with schwa, you can work on words like these.