Beginning letter sounds

HOW TO BEST TEACH BEGINNING LETTER SOUNDS

How to best teach initial sounds - teaching ideas and printable resources ideal for young children learning beginning letter sounds.

Learning to tell sounds apart is a key literacy skill in the Early Years and a first step in being able to read and write. 

As parents and teachers we do this orally - helping our children distinguish between sounds like 'd is for dog, c is for cat'. Being able to tell sounds apart in this way is called sound discrimination.

Learning beginning letter sounds is the next step to linking a child's oral language skills to written language - what they see and will attempt to write themselves.

But how best to teach preschoolers beginning sounds? What resources to use? 

I've rounded up some of my favourite printables for introducing and teaching children initial letter sounds at school or at home.

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INTRODUCING LETTERS NAMES AND SOUNDS

Some experts will probably disagree with me but I introduce both the letter name and the letter's initial sound to children at the same time. I also introduce the upper and lower case letter forms but then spend most of our time teaching the beginning sound using the lower case letter.

I believe young children need to be taught early the distinction between a letter's name and the sound it makes in words - D said as 'dee' as it's letter name but makes a shorter 'd' sound phonetically. 

If a child trying to decode the word dog 'dee-oo-gee' isn't going to make much sense so they need to understand that each letter has a name and a sound or possibly more than one sound - g = g as in goat and game and j as in giraffe and gem.

TEACHING BEGINNING SOUNDS

Depending on your literacy program (think Jolly Phonics, Words There Way, Sounds and Letters, Thrass, Soundwaves), each has a particular order for introducing the letters.

My preferred way is to teach a letter a day so that over a week you have a handful of letters to review and consolidate at a time. The most common - SATPIN start, then allows children to begin to mix and match these letters to start making simple words - at, it, in, pat, sat, tin, pin.

Having visual prompts around your classroom to help support young children check their thinking is key at this stage. As Early Childhood teachers, we know children 'read' pictures before they read words.

I created some picture/sound based alphabet posters for my own classroom which I often catch children 'reading'. You can find a copy of these posters here.

With one Reception class, we made our own alphabet wall charts which was such a fun term long project that helped the children understand initial sounds and make connections across different words.

After teach the letter and the sound it makes, resources that allow children to make this connection themselves and practice it are what you need.

Anything hands-on is a winner in my classroom. My students love playdough so at the start of the school year when we're starting to introduce the different letters and sounds I use these playdough mats to invite play.

Don't like using playdough? You can use these mats with any small objects to create an invitation in your classroom. Here I've just added some small stones to build the different letters but you could also laminate the cards and add whiteboard markers to practice writing the letters.

Being able to make the letter using these alphabet mats is a great way to introduce and consolidate their knowledge of the alphabet independently in our literacy centres. You can find the alphabet mats here. 

When ready I swap the individual letter mats out for these ones. I've created mats for the entire alphabet but again just use the letters we are focusing on until we have taught all of the alphabet. You can find the alphabet mats here. 

With many young children starting school with poor or underdeveloped fine motor skills, I often use clothes pegs in our centre activities to help strengthen those small hand muscles while allowing them to practice other skills.

These peg clip cards are a perfect example. Once the children have learnt their letter sounds they can practice differentiating between just three pictures to find the one that matches the letter displayed on the cards. You can find these cards here.

The next step up from our peg clip cards are our letter sound wheels as they still require children to use their growing understanding of initial letter sounds but now have a few pictures that don't belong. We've also thrown in some handwriting practice making these initial sound wheels one of my favourite resources ever.

Disguised as a game, our letter sound mazes ask children to do the same as our letter sound wheels in they have to differentiate between sounds to find their way through the maze from the start to the finish.

A little less complex, these initial sound mats have long been a favourite in my classroom. Simply print and add magnetic letters or laminate and write the letter to match the beginning sound.

These letter sound wheels ask children to do the same but they have individually labeled clothes pegs to match the letter to the first sound in each word. You can find these wheels along with our FREE upper/lower case letter match wheels here.

Few have been able to resist our initial sound alphabet mats! Simple to prep, just print and add some counters for children to search for all the words that start with the letter sound displayed in the middle of each mat.

With a mat for each letter included, the children can see clearly that few words start with 'X' or 'Q' compared to 'B' or 'T'. You can download the mats from here.

Beginning Sounds Activities for Kindergarten

Curriculum | Featured | Letters & Letter Sounds | Reading

December 7, 2021December 7, 2021

When learning to read, there are many phonemic awareness and phonics skills students must master. Learning letter names, letter sounds, and beginning sounds is key in helping students quickly decode and read texts. To give your students the exposure and practice they need, check out these beginning sounds activities for kindergarten.

Why is it Important to Teach Beginning Sounds?

When teaching students to read, it’s important for them to understand that words are made up of letters and sounds. This knowledge helps them read and write more fluently.

Phonemic awareness and phonics skills are key in kindergarten. Phonemic awareness skills are when students understand that words are made up of various sounds. Phonics skills are what correlates the sound of a letter to the written letter itself.

Begin with teaching phonemic awareness skills so students learn to listen for and differentiate the sounds in words.

It can be tricky for students to hear the middle and ending sounds in words at first, which is why starting with beginning sounds is so effective.

Digital Beginning Sounds Activities

Since it’s important for students to first understand what beginning sounds are and learn to listen for them in words, you need a variety of beginning sounds activities for kindergarten for them to practice with.

A great way to engage your students is with interactive digital phonemic awareness activities like beginning sounds Boom Cards. These Boom Card decks give students a variety of opportunities to practice listening for the same beginning sounds in words.

Plus with audio directions, audio picture names, and the self-checking feature, your students will be able to work independently with success.

Hands-on Beginning Sounds Activities

Mastering beginning sounds takes a lot of practice and exposure. Therefore, you need a wide array of hands-on beginning sounds activities for kindergarten that your students can work with.

You can incorporate these hands-on activities into your morning tubs, literacy centers, or fast finisher activities. This is a great way to keep your students practicing their skills throughout the day.

Letter Sound Mats

One of my favorite ways to practice beginning sounds is with letter sound mats and magnetic letters. Students will say the picture name aloud, identify the beginning sound, and match the correct magnetic letter to the picture.

If you have a set of picture cards and magnetic letters, you can simply have students flip a card, identify the beginning sound, and match the letter.

Build the Sound Mats

Another great beginning sounds activity for kindergarten is build the sound mats. This activity allows students to identify the beginning sound in the picture and build the letter using manipulatives.

Students will get extra fine motor practice as they work on both phonemic awareness and phonics skills.

Beginning Sound Mazes

Another fun way to switch up the learning is to use beginning sound mazes with your students. As they cover the letters that make the focus sound on the mat, they’ll work their way through the maze.

This makes learning feel like a game for students, which is a sure way to keep them on task, engaged, and motivated.

If you loved these hands-on beginning sounds activities for kindergarten, you can grab them all plus more in my Beginning Sounds and Letter Sounds Bundle!

No Prep Beginning Sounds Activities

While using digital and hands-on beginning sounds activities is key, it’s also nice to keep a good stash of no prep activities on hand.

Add these no prep beginning sounds activities to your morning work, independent literacy stations, or keep them in a sub tub. They also make great time filler activities if you have a few minutes between activities.

If you need a quick way to assess your students on beginning sounds, you can use these no prep activities as an informal assessment as well.

How to Assess Your Students on Beginning Sounds

As your students learn and grow their beginning sounds skills, you want to assess them frequently. This allows you to see which beginning sounds they are mastering and which sounds they need help with.

Using beginning sounds picture cards and a checklist is a great way to gauge your students’ understanding. You can monitor students quarterly, monthly, or every 2 weeks if they need more support.

Beginning Sounds Assessment Freebie

To make assessing your students on beginning sounds and letter sounds easy, I created an assessment freebie for you.

This freebie includes a beginning sounds assessment checklist and beginning sounds pictures. There is also a letter sounds assessment page and checklist to help you assess your students’ uppercase and lowercase letter sound recognition.

You can fill out the form below to get the beginning sounds and letter sounds assessment freebie sent directly to your inbox!

I hope these beginning sounds activities and assessments for kindergarten make learning more fun and effective in your classroom!

Post Tags: #beginning sounds#Freebies#letter sounds#literacy#literacy centers#reading

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Vowel sounds and letters. How many are there in Russian?

Free introductory lesson in Russian

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Correct pronunciation of words is one of the components of beautiful and literate speech. To achieve this, you will first have to study the sounds themselves. In this article, we will figure out together what vowel sounds are, how many vowels are in the alphabet of the Russian language, and what sounds they can represent.

What are vowels and sounds

Vowel sounds are those sounds that we freely convey with our voice. Hence their name comes from: voice means "voice". When pronouncing, air exits through the mouth and does not create noise, and the position of the tongue and lips determines which vowel sound we will pronounce.

There are much fewer vowels in Russian than consonants. There are 6 of them in total: [a], [o], [i], [s], [y] and [e]. To understand whether a vowel sound is in front of you or not, try to sing it. For example:

• a-a-a ,

• woo

• s-s-s .

If it works, then the sound is a vowel. You can't do that with consonants.

There are more vowels than sounds - there are 10 of them: a, i, u, u, o, e, e, e, i, s . This difference is due to the fact that some of these letters can represent two sounds and are pronounced using a combination of a vowel and a consonant [y']. For example, in the word spruce the letter e two sounds are expressed - [y '] and [e]. Let's look at the table all the vowel sounds and the letters that represent them.

Demo lesson in Russian

Take the test at the introductory lesson and find out what topics separate you from the "five" in Russian.

How vowel sounds are related to syllables

Vowel sounds form syllables - sound segments of words that we pronounce with one breath. One syllable can be either a vowel with one or more consonants, or a vowel alone. There is even a rule by which syllables can be counted: how many vowels in a word - so many syllables.

For example, in the word journey there are 5 vowels: [u], [i], [e], [i] and [e]. This means that it has 5 syllables: p-te-she-stv-e .

Test yourself!

Count the number of syllables in the words: try on, tanner, well-groomed, care, prefix, capital, wet, invitation, orange .

Vowel sounds and stress

Now let's see what groups vowel sounds are divided into. Sometimes their pronunciation depends on whether the stress falls on them, that is, whether we single them out with our voice. So vowel sounds are divided into stressed and unstressed. Here are some examples:

Stress in Russian can fall on any of the existing vowel sounds. However, only 4 of them can be unstressed - these are [a], [i], [y] and [s]. In this position, we pronounce sounds weaker than under stress, because of which they can change qualities and sound differently.

Interestingly, the vowels [o] and [e] can only be stressed. There are only a couple of exceptions to this rule: for example, in words cocoa and canoe sounds [o] and [e] in an unstressed position.

How unstressed vowels are related to consonants

How an unstressed vowel sounds depends on the consonant that precedes it. Or rather, from its hardness or softness. If it is a hard consonant, it can be followed by unstressed vowels [y], [a] and [s]. When we talk about a soft consonant, it is followed by unstressed vowels [y] and [and].

Test yourself

It's time to find out if you now understand well what vowel sounds are in Russian. To do this, we have prepared tasks for self-examination.

Task 1

List all the vowels in these words:

Task 2

Name 5 words each in which the sounds [a], [i], [y] and [s] would be stressed.

Task 3

Name 5 words in which an unstressed vowel would come after a hard consonant, and 5 more words where it would follow a soft consonant.

Task 4

Count the number of syllables in the words below (don't forget to use the rule you learned at the beginning of the article!):

• weightless,

• sunrise,

• adventure,

• painter,

• perpetuate,

• pleasant,

• image,

• category,

• exciting,

• melting,

• snowflake.

The rules of phonetics help us to speak correctly, so it is important to master the topic of vowels well and avoid gaps in knowledge. If even after reading the article you still have questions on the topic, you can figure them out in the Russian language course at Skysmart. In online lessons, the teacher will help the student work out the theory and consolidate the result on non-boring tasks. So the student will be able to improve the quality of knowledge, and fall in love with the subject.

Russian cheat sheets for parents

All the rules of the Russian language at hand

Sounds and letters | Learning Russian

01/15/2013 | Author: svetrus | Category: Phonetics

What is sound? What is a letter? How do they compare? How are sounds formed and what are they?

Sounds

Speech sounds differ from all other sounds in that they form words.
Sound is the smallest basic unit of language along with the word, phrase and sentence. But, unlike them, sound has no semantic meaning. But, it is thanks to the sounds that we distinguish between the words that we hear and pronounce: house [house] and rum [rum] - the difference is in one sound. Sounds create a sound shell of words and this helps to distinguish words from each other, i.e. perform a semantic function. With the help of speech sounds, you can turn one word into another: suk-bow - tuk - tok - rock - mouth - rum - tom - com - ... (when you change one sound, the word changes).

Words differ:

• by the number of sounds they consist of: crow (6 sounds) - funnel (7 sounds), dispute - sport;
• sound set:
  • difference in one sound: lemon [l'imon] - firth [l'iman]; port [port] - cake [cake], onion [onion] - bough [bough];
  • difference in several sounds: tan [tan] - fence [fence]; beans [beans '] - password [password '];
• sequence of sounds: bush [bush] - knock [knock]; nose [nose] - sleep [sleep];
• sounds in words may not completely match: school [school] - teacher [teacher]; crucian carp [carp '] - catfish [catfish], house [house] - hut [hut].

Formation of sounds and their classification.

Speech sounds are produced during exhalation: a stream of air exhaled from the lungs passes through the larynx and oral cavity. Air vibrations and the work of speech apparatus (larynx with vocal cords, oral and nasal cavities, palate, tongue, lips, teeth) form sound.

Tones (voice) and noises are involved in the formation of speech sounds. When the exhaled air passes through the tense vocal cords in the larynx, which causes rhythmic vibrations of the vocal cords, voices (tone) arise. Noise is formed in the oral cavity when the exhaled air overcomes the obstacles (gap or closure) that are formed by the lower lip or tongue when they approach or close with the upper lip, teeth or palate.

When the exhaled air is without obstacles passes through the larynx between tense vocal cords and through the oral cavity, which can change its shape, vowels are formed . They consist only of a voice, they are the most sonorous. If you put your finger on the larynx and pronounce the vowel sound [a], [o], [y], [i], [s], [e], then you can feel how the vocal cords tremble. Vowels can be sung.

If the exhaled air encounters an obstruction in the oral cavity, consonants . Both voice and noise are already involved in their education. Consonants, in the formation of which voice and noise participate, are called voiced . If in creating a sound the voice prevails over the noise, then such voiced consonants are sonorous . Deaf sounds are created only by noise without a voice (vocal cords are relaxed, do not tremble).

Speech sounds according to the degree of sonority (by the number of voice and noise):

• vowels: [a], [o], [y], [i], [s], [e] - only voice is involved in their formation;
• voiced:
  • sonorant consonants: [m], [m'], [n], [n'], [l], [l'], [p], [p'], [y'] – more voices than noise, always voiced, unpaired voiced;
  • noisy voiced consonants: [b], [b'], [c], [c'], [g], [g'], [d], [d'], [h], [h'] , [g] - there is more noise than voices, paired voiced (in speech, a voiced sound is sometimes used [g ']: jury [zh'uri], reins [reins'i]);
• noisy voiceless consonants: [n], [n'], [f], [f'], [k], [k'], [t], [t'], [s], [s'] , [w], [u'], [x], [x'], [c], [h'] - consist only of noise.

Please note that vowels and consonants (voiced and voiceless) differ in the degree of participation of voice and noise, according to the method of formation (there are or are not encountered obstacles in the oral cavity when exhaling air).

Voice (tone) is always present in the pronunciation of vowels and voiced consonants. When pronouncing deaf consonants, the vocal cords are relaxed, the voice is not formed.

The specific sound of each vowel depends on the volume and shape of the oral cavity - the position of the tongue and lips.

The sound of each consonant depends on the functioning of the organs of speech. Consonants are sonorous and noisy, and noisy - voiced and deaf, depending on the participation of voice and noise in their formation. Consonants also differ in the place where the noise is formed, depending on where and by what organs of speech an obstacle is formed through which the exhaled air passes (labial, lingual, etc.).

Consonants are divided into hard and soft . Soft sounds differ from hard sounds in that when they are formed, the tongue performs an additional action: its middle part rises to the hard palate.

Letters

Letters are graphic characters that represent speech sounds when writing. There are 33 letters in total. There is no complete correspondence between letters and sounds.

We pronounce and hear sounds, we see and write letters.

An exact recording of speech sounds is called transcription , indicated by square brackets […]. When recording a transcription of a word, it is necessary to designate each sound with a separate letter, put an accent sign, a soft sign [‘]. For example, a cow is [kaROVA], the letter to conveys the sound [k] , the letter р means the sound [р] , etc.

How are letters and sounds related?

Letters are called vowels or consonants because they represent vowels or consonants.

• All sounds in a word can correspond to their letter: table [table].
• One letter can represent different sounds:

  in the words fruit [raft], fruits [plady], the letter o is used to denote the sounds [o] , [a] , and the letter d is used to denote the sounds [t] and [d ] .

• Letters may not represent sounds:
• One letter can represent two sounds:
  • letters e, e, u, i at the beginning of a word, after dividing b, b and vowels, two sounds are indicated [y'e], [y'o], [y'y], [y'a]. The sounds e, e, yu, i do not exist in Russian.
  • letters b, c, d, e, z, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, f, x they say

  The ambiguity of letters is connected with the syllabic principle of the functioning of Russian graphics . The essence of this principle lies in the fact that the unit of writing and reading is not a letter, but a syllable , i. e. a combination of letters to denote consonant and vowel sounds, where the letters are mutually conditioned. The syllabic principle is used to denote the hardness and softness of consonants, as well as to denote the consonant sound [th].

• One sound can be transmitted by different letters:

  in words c irkul [ c yrkul’ ], smile ts i [smile ts a] sound [ts] is transmitted by the letter ts and the letters ts (ts) .