Chapter 4: Some Theoretical Aspects of Words? Words Skills: Language and Activities for Talking About Words

Last Class We looked at classroom interactions for talking about spelling and meaning. In particular, we looked clarifying spelling and defining words with synonyms, antonyms, and appositives.

Last Class Quick is spelled Q-U-I-C-K. That’s K as in KING. It’s another word for fast. It’s the opposite of slow.

Today’s Class We are going to look at some theoretical aspects of words. Having a clear conception of these aspects will help us when we have to explain pronunciation or phonetic rules to students.

Consonants and Vowels: A Source of Confusion How many consonants and vowels does the word below have? THREE

The answer depends on what you mean by consonant and what you mean by vowel. Sometimes when we say consonant we mean a consonant letter and sometimes we mean a consonant sound. Likewise for vowel.

THREE has three consonant letters: T, H, and R. THREE has two vowel letters: E, E THREE has two consonant sounds: /θ/, /r/ THREE has one vowel sound: /i/

Consonant Letters Consonant letters are b, c, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, q, r, s, t, v, w, x, y, and z. The are called consonant letters because they typically make a consonant sound (but not always).

Consonant Sounds Consonants are made by closing restricting the vocal tract in some way Some examples are the /b/ in ball, the /f/ in fish, or the /w/ in water.

Vowel Letters The vowel letters are a, e, i, o, and u. They are called vowel letters because they typically make a vowel sound.

Vowel Sounds Vowels are sounds made with an open vocal tract. Some examples are the /æ/ in bat and the /aɪ/ in like.

In class task 1 Fill out table 4-1 for the following words: cat like bought sight ship

Short Vowels Vowel can be long or short. The words hat, bed, bit, dot, and sub have short vowels. They are also called CVC words. (consonant –short vowel-consonant)

Long Vowels Long vowel words are made by adding a ‘bossy E’ which is also called a ‘silent E’ or a ‘magic E’ by teachers. Some long vowel words are bike, tape, and rope. When explaining this teachers often say that the E bosses the vowel (changes its sound).

Other Long Vowels Other long vowels are made up of vowel digraphs such as the ee in seed, the ai in train or the oa in toad.

Phonemes versus Graphemes This brings us to our next point what is a digraph. First we need to know what a phoneme is and what a grapheme is.

Phoneme A phoneme is an indivisible unit of sound like the /f/ in fish. The word cat for example has three phonemes /k/, /æ/, and /t/.

Grapheme A grapheme is a written representation of a phoneme. /k/ is represented by c /æ/ is represented by a. /t/ is represented by t.

Digraphs A digraph is a combination of letters that represent a single phoneme (sound). Some consonant digraphs are SH, CH, NG, and CK. Some vowel digraphs are EE, EA, OO, OA, and AI

Consonant Blends Consonant blends are combinations of consonants that do not represent a single phoneme and can be segmented into their individual sounds. The /f/ /r/ in frog is an example.

R-controlled vowels R-controlled vowels are combinations of vowels followed by r. The r causes the vowel pronunciation to change (hence it's called r-controlled). The ar in star, the ir in bird, and the or in storm are examples. These are notoriously difficult for Korean speakers.

In Class Group Discussion In groups, discuss and number the following items with 1 being the first thing you would teach and 8 being the last thing you would teach. __ vowel digraphs, __ consonant blends  __ long vowels (bossy E), __ consonant digraphs __consonants sounds, __ short vowels __r-controlled vowels, __ cvc words 

Words that Don’t Fit Some words do not have regular phoneme-grapheme correspondences. Some example of these words are: one, two, what, does, do, word, and war Unfortunately, these are some of the most common words in the English language.

Sight Words Phonics can offer partial help in decoding these words, but for the most part they must be learned from sight. We call them sight words.

Dolch Sight Words In 1936, Dolch compiled a list of the most common words found in children’s literature in the English language. These are the Dolch sight word list. Many of these words have irregular grapheme-phoneme correspondences.

Syllables in a Word This is actually not a well-defined concept and there is some controversy as to what a syllable is. One way to define a syllable is a unit of sound centered around a vowel. It may or may not include consonant sounds before or after it.

Language Focus: Syllables Look at the way we talk about syllables in a word. Paper has two syllables. There are two syllables in paper.

In Class Task How many syllables do the following words have? attitude every screeched

Chapter 5: Pronunciation Use these expressions to ask about pronunciation. How do you pronounce (this word/this/that/it)? How is (this word/it/this/that) pronounced? How do you say (this word/this/that/it)?

You pronounce it /word/. Use these expressions to give pronunciation: You pronounce it /word/. It's pronounced /word/. Note: the similarity with spelling.

Letters and Sounds When talking about the sounds that letters make use these expressions: (The) B makes a /b/ sound. (The) S-H makes a /ʃ/ sound. Note: make and sound collocate strongly.

Exercise 5-1 What sound do the letters in bold make? century later knight philosophy ocean

Talking About Silent Letters Use these expressions when talking about silent letters. Lamb has a silent B. The T in watch is silent.

Exercise 5-2 What are the silent letters in these words? debt island raspberry sign autumn

Clarifying Pronunciation Similar to clarifying letters. That's /b/ as in boy. That's /k/ like the /k/ in cat Choose a well-known noun with a well-known pronunciation.

Exercise 5-3 Clarify the pronunciation of the letters in bold: brother peach machine west saw laugh