Recognizing Phonemes with Susan Robison

Susan Robison: Now what we're going to do is we are going to actually sort our pictures by ending sound. This is a picture of a mouse.

Students: Mouse.

Susan Robison: A mouse, right? And the ending sound for mouse is /ssss/, so I'm going to have my mouse as my /ssss/ ending sound. Okay. Can you find a picture in your mind, right, that ends with the same sound as mouse. So we have ... [Teacher shows pictures and students point at each and say name of each picture.]

Students: Soap, toothbrush, harp, cactus, horse.

Susan Robison: Who would like to raise their hand and tell me another picture that has the same ending sound.

Student: Horse.

Susan Robison: Horse. What's the ending sound?

Students: /ssss/

Susan Robison: Beautiful job. Here's a picture of soap. What's the ending sound, everybody?

Students: /sss/

Susan Robison: The ending sound for soap ...

Students: /p/

Susan Robison: Yes, /p/, the ending sound for soap. /Soooo/, /p/. There we go. That's going to be another picture for .... hmm, we need to find, find a picture that ends with that same sound. We have [Teacher points to pictures, and teacher and students all recite the words.] toothbrush, harp, cactus. What do you think? What do you think?

Student: Harp.

Susan Robison: Harp. What's the ending sound? The ending sound. So we know it's harp. What's the ending sound? Har- ...

Students: /p/

Susan Robison: Yes. Oh my goodness. You did a beautiful job today producing your ending sounds. And this is going to help you with your reading and your writing, because we always have to hear the final sounds in words. Great job.

Narrator: For more information, please visit ReadingUniverse.org. Special thanks to Literacy How, Stillmeadow Elementary School, and Stamford Public Schools in Stamford, Connecticut. Reading Universe is made possible by generous support from Jim and Donna Barksdale, the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation, and two anonymous donors. Reading Universe is a service of WETA, Washington, D.C., the Barksdale Reading Institute, and First Book.

Susan Robison: This is Reading Universe.