egg

As I can not stress enough... find a high frequency word to use with your students that can also be a sound word. When we teach our students the sound(s) a letter makes we usually teach it with a word so they can use to build capacity in the sound.

Today we are looking at the short e sound. We will call the short e sound /e/. This sound is one of the first sounds we have to teach our students because sooooooo many words use /e/. Many of us are used to elephant. However, if we think about where we put the stress in the word elephant, we actually put the stress on the second e which makes it's long sound el-E-phant. So in all reality this is confusing for students.

Let's stop confusing them and start being more constant and simple. Egg. We only hear two sounds /e/ and /g/. It can be tricky because of the two g's but that is not the focus of intension of the word. Plus like I said in my previous post, egg is an egg... there is not another word for egg when you see the picture. Since this word is so simple, with it's two sounds, it is not hard for students to hear those parts and then be able to use the /e/ sound.

Now let's practice. Say egg. Now say bet. Now say egg sooooo slowly. /e/-/g/. Now say bet soooo slowly (this is so you can hear all of the parts- no not letters- parts, in the word). /b/-/e/-/t/. Do you think students would be able to point to the letter e, maybe say it or write it, and use it when writing the word bet? Now try the word hem or went or desk or spend.

Once students have an exemplar word for a sound, they will be able to apply that sound when they read and when they write. It's less about rules... more about patterns and hearing a sound and knowing what it can look like to make sense.

So give it a try--- make every thing in your classroom that is an /e/ sound connected to the word egg. Let me know if there is more success than teaching a rule or teaching using the word elephant!

Good Luck! Happy Teaching.