ant

When I teach, I think about how I can teach as simple as possible. Quality over quantity right? So when it comes to teaching vowels that is not exception. Especially because vowels can have one or two sounds, sometimes even more. They look different and sound different depending on other letters or just because that's the way they are.

So let's look at the short a sound. /a/ is what we will call it today.

/a/ was always taught as apple. But use that /ah/ sound in the word can. It doesn't quite work, does it?Plus look at the word apple. Why are there two p's? Also the /le/ sound is very tricky for a beginning learner. So I use the word: ant. /a/ ant. Now try the /a/ sound in the word can... what about pattern? It works.

I also use the word ant because there are no other tricky parts. A sound exemplar word should be one of two things if not both!:

1. DECODABLE- /a/-/n/-/t/ ant is very decodable.

2. HFW- ant is not necessarily a high frequency word but if a beginning reader is reading a page that says "I like the bunny" they could potentially say "I like the rabbit" because they might not have the quick vocabulary set to know bunny or they might not have developed their self monitoring processing system which would tell them to look at the first letter(s)/ part.

If they see and ant in a picture they will say ant. So I say high frequency word because I also mean a word that is frequent and common, not one that could have another similar name.

So what I'm trying to say is, when you choose a word that is going to be on an ABC line, an ABC chart, a word wall, a book bin, a table, etc., and a word that you are going to use the sound to model after, use a word that is not confusing and that makes sense. (Steal ant!) Plus I think even your students could draw an ant to show to show the /a/ sound!

Go to my Teachers Pay Teachers to download your FREE ABC line, ABC chart, word wall and book bin labels!

Cheers!