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Skill Explainer

9. Resource Hub: Teaching Short Vowel Sounds

Short Vowels Skill Explainer

Video thumbnail for Teaching Strategy Demo – Build-a-Word: Closed Syllables
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Antonio Fierro: Build-A-Word strategy is a strategy that helps students spell words with a new pattern they are learning. Using the routine that I'm going to model for you, students practice recognizing that connection between that phoneme and that grapheme. Let me show you what we can do, and I'm going to use a closed syllable word, right? The word is mop. What's the word? Mop. "I use the mop to clean the floor." Let's go ahead and tap the number of phonemes or identify the phonemes in the word "mop." /m/, /ǒ/, /p/. Wonderful. Let's go ahead and put it here on the board. /m/, /ǒ/, /p/. All right. This first phoneme is /m/. Hmm. Which grapheme represents that sound? "M." What about this one? /ǒ/. Which grapheme represents that sound? "O." Right? "O." And my final phoneme is /p/. Hmm. I think, we know it's the "p," right? Mop. Mop. Let's go ahead and write it. Mop. Mop. Right.

Video thumbnail for Motions for Tricky Vowel Sounds
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Morgan Walton: These are the motions we use to help students remember tricky vowel sounds. /o͞o/, ooze, /o͝o/, book, /oi/, oink, /ou/, house.

Video thumbnail for Quick Look: Segmenting with the Roller Coaster Strategy
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Fadia Olrich: So, the roller coaster strategy helps us figure out the sounds in words, especially the middle vowel sound, because sometimes that gets a little tricky, doesn't it? So, we're going to use our roller coaster strategy to help us with those sounds. So, watch this first word. This word is met. Say met.

Students: Met.

Ms. Orlich: So, watch what I do. I'm going to start at the bottom of the roller coaster.

Ms. Orlich and students: /m/, /ĕ/, /t/. Met.

Ms. Orlich: Good.

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