When I teach my students how to read a sound, I like to project words that have that sound in them. I like to think about it as we are discovering the sounds, when we see it and how we say it.
So today we are going to work on the short o sound. I always project words on the board (look at the picture). I try to put them in three columns, beginning sounds, middle sounds, end sounds. However, not all word sound are found in the beginning, middle, and end of a word. So then I mix it up and ask my students where they see and hear the sound.
If we only practice the way short words look and sound and word families, our students will have a hard time developing decoding skills beyond the middle of a word.
When we do a sound introduction, I go through the I do, we do, you do process. I model by running my finger under the beginning part of the word. I ONLY say the sound that we are working on when it comes up. For example I will say the short o sound, /o/, at the beginning in the word ox. I will say the short o sound, /o/, at the middle in the word boxing. NO OTHER SOUNDS. Then I allow students to join me as we complete the chart. After I will have students go to the board and practice in front of the class. We also discuss where we see the sound in the word. This empowers them to find parts of words and match them when the sound appears to how we say it.
We alway want our readers and writers to be able to answer three questions:
1- Does it make sense?
2- Does it sound right?
3- Does it look right?
With this practice, all three questions are answers with a big fat yes! This simple practice helps our students master when and where we say our sounds. Soon this will transfer to writing! When we hear it we write it.
Enjoy! Look for the sounds charts on my Teachers Pay Teachers page: Phoundational Phonics!
Happy Teaching.
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