Sounds of letters chart


Alphabet Sounds Chart - with Letter Formation

An alphabet sounds chart is a great resource for young readers and writers. I created it specifically for my Kindergartner.

*This post contains affiliate links.
**The free download can be found at the END of this post. Click on the teal download button.

 

Alphabet Sounds Chart

After creating our numbers 1-20 chart, I got LOTS of requests for an alphabet chart, too.

We already have a beginning sounds chart, but the alphabet sounds chart I’m posting today is a little simpler for younger learners.

This sound chart is a little different from other charts that you might find on the web.

For one thing, the letter formation for each letter is included. So, learners can use this as a phonics chart to help them spell as well as remember the formation of their letters. Woot!

Secondly, it includes more than just one sound per letter.

  • The vowels include the long and short sounds.
  • Cc and Gg include both their hard and soft sounds.
  • Xx includes the /z/ sound you hear at the beginning of xylophone and the /ks/ sound at the end of box.
  • Yy has three sounds featured: 1- the /y/ sound at the beginning of yarn, 2- the long i sound at the end of fly, and 3- the long e sound at the end of baby.

 

 

Handling Multiple Sounds with Young Learners

Now, this may seem rather complicated to work on all these multiple sounds, but it can be as simple as this example:

Child is writing: I am… and wants to write happy to end the sentence. She sounds through each letter, using the chart when needed.

If I’m working with the child, when she gets to the -y, I’d say something like: “It sounds like an e goes on the end, doesn’t it? But when we hear that /ee/ sound on the end of words, it is sometimes spelled with a y. Look on your chart and find the letter y. Do you see the baby? The last letter in baby is also a y. Let’s write a y at the end of happy.”

The key is to keep it simple. I doesn’t need to become a full lesson for knowing how to spell these letters with multiple sounds. That wouldn’t be developmentally appropriate for most Kindergartners.

 

Two Quick Notes:

  • This alphabet sounds chart is offered in color & blackline in the download! Keep scrolling to find it below.
  • There are TWO versions. Version 1 on the download includes EAGLE as the key picture for long e. Version 2 includes EGRET as the key picture for long e.

 

Looking for more Alphabet Ideas?

Alphabet Sounds App

Beginning Sounds Trace & Clip Cards
Printable Alphabet Puzzles
Alphabet Letter Mazes with Different Fonts

 

 

Get the freebie below!

 

Enjoy!
~Becky

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With this alphabet chart, understand how to say the names of the letters and read about all the sounds of each letter from the alphabet. These are the basic phonetic sounds for American English. To learn important sounds using free videos online, go to Pronunciation in English: 500 Words.

Letter

Sound of Letter Name

All sounds of letter

Examples

A, a

ā-ee (long a to long e, also spell "ay")

, ā, ah, ā-uh, uh

cat, late, all, and, around

B, b

Bee

buh

bike

C, c

See

kuh, suh

cake, city

D, d

Dee

duh

did

E, e

Ee

eh, ee, silent

bed, free, late

F, f

Ef

fuh

fed

G, g

Jee

guh, juh

glad, large

H, h

ā-ch

huh, silent

hotel, what

I, i

ah-ee

ah-ee, ĭ

light, sit

J, j

Jay

juh

jump

K, k

Kay

kuh

kite

L, l

El

luh, ul

lot, full

M, m

Em

muh

mother

N, n

En

nuh

nest

O, o

ō (oh)

ah, ō, uh, oo, ů

hot, slow, computer, fool, good

P, p

Pee

puh

put

Q, q

Kyoo (kyū)

kwuh

quick

R, r

Ah-r

ruh, ur

race, stir

S, s

Es

suh, zuh

stick, is

T, t

Tee

tuh, duh, N, silent, stopped tuh

table, better, mountain, interview, hot

U, u

Yoo (yū)

uh, yoo, oo,  ů

up, use, flute, full

V, v

Vee

vuh

very

W, w

Dubōyoo

wuh, silent

well, slow

X, x

Eks

ks, zuh

box, xylophone

Y, y

Wah-ee

yuh, ee, ah-ee (i), ĭ

yes, happy, try, cylinder

Z, z

Zee

zuh

zebra


     

    
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Sounds and letters of the Russian language - scheme, table, transcription

Contents:
• What is sound?
• What sounds are there?
• How are sounds pronounced?
• Transcription of the word
• Color scheme

Sounds belong to the phonetics section. The study of sounds is included in any school curriculum in the Russian language. Acquaintance with sounds and their main characteristics occurs in the lower grades. A more detailed study of sounds with complex examples and nuances takes place in middle and high school. This page provides only basic knowledge of the sounds of the Russian language in a compressed form. If you need to study the device of the speech apparatus, the tonality of sounds, articulation, acoustic components and other aspects that are beyond the scope of the modern school curriculum, refer to specialized textbooks and textbooks on phonetics. nine0008

What is sound?

Sound, like words and sentences, is the basic unit of language. However, the sound does not express any meaning, but reflects the sound of the word. Thanks to this, we distinguish words from each other. Words differ in the number of sounds (port - sport, crow - funnel), set of sounds (lemon - estuary, cat - mouse), sequence of sounds (nose - dream, bush - knock) up to a complete mismatch of sounds (boat - boat, forest - park ).

What sounds are there?

In Russian, sounds are divided into vowels and consonants. There are 33 letters and 42 sounds in Russian: 6 vowels, 36 consonants, 2 letters (ь, ъ) do not indicate a sound. The discrepancy in the number of letters and sounds (not counting b and b) is due to the fact that there are 6 sounds for 10 vowels, 36 sounds for 21 consonants (if we take into account all combinations of consonant sounds deaf / voiced, soft / hard). On the letter, the sound is indicated in square brackets.
There are no sounds: [e], [e], [yu], [i], [b], [b], [g '], [w '], [c '], [th], [h ], [sch]. nine0008 Scheme 1. Letters and sounds of the Russian language. Scheme 1.1. Letters and sounds of the Russian language. Scheme 1.2. Vowels and sounds of the Russian language. Scheme 1.3. Consonants and sounds of the Russian language. Scheme 1.4. Russian letters that do not represent sounds.

How are sounds pronounced?

We pronounce sounds while exhaling (only in the case of the interjection "a-a-a", expressing fear, the sound is pronounced while inhaling.). The division of sounds into vowels and consonants is related to how a person pronounces them. Vowel sounds are pronounced by the voice due to the exhaled air passing through the tense vocal cords and freely exiting through the mouth. Consonant sounds consist of noise or a combination of voice and noise due to the fact that the exhaled air meets an obstacle in its path in the form of a bow or teeth. Vowel sounds are pronounced loudly, consonant sounds are muffled. A person is able to sing vowel sounds with his voice (exhaled air), raising or lowering the timbre. Consonant sounds cannot be sung, they are pronounced equally muffled. Hard and soft signs do not represent sounds. They cannot be pronounced as an independent sound. When pronouncing a word, they affect the consonant in front of them, make it soft or hard. nine0008

Transcription of a word

Transcription of a word is a recording of sounds in a word, that is, in fact, a record of how the word is pronounced correctly. Sounds are enclosed in square brackets. Compare: a is a letter, [a] is a sound. The softness of consonants is indicated by an apostrophe: p - letter, [p] - hard sound, [p '] - soft sound. Voiced and voiceless consonants are not marked in writing. The transcription of the word is written in square brackets. Examples: door → [dv'er '], thorn → [kal'uch'ka]. Sometimes stress is indicated in transcription - an apostrophe before a vowel stressed sound. nine0008

There is no clear correspondence between letters and sounds. In the Russian language, there are many cases of substitution of vowel sounds depending on the place of stress of a word, substitution of consonants or dropping out of consonant sounds in certain combinations. When compiling a transcription of a word, the rules of phonetics are taken into account.

Color scheme

In phonetic analysis, words are sometimes drawn with color schemes: letters are painted with different colors depending on what sound they mean. Colors reflect the phonetic characteristics of sounds and help you visualize how a word is pronounced and what sounds it consists of. nine0008

All vowels (stressed and unstressed) are marked with a red background. Iotated vowels are marked green-red: green means a soft consonant sound [y ‘], red means the vowel following it. Consonants with solid sounds are colored blue. Consonants with soft sounds are colored green. Soft and hard signs are painted in gray or not painted at all.

Vowels0040
Consistent Tsh zh zh zhb z k l m h r ch chhh
b, b. b

- vowel, - vowel iot - hard consonant, - soft consonant, - soft or hard consonant, - does not mean a sound.

The blue-green color is not used in the schemes for phonetic analysis, since a consonant cannot be both soft and hard at the same time. The blue-green color in the table above is only used to show that the sound can be either soft or hard. nine0008

Words with the letter ё must be written through ё. Phonetic parsing of the words "everything" and "everything" will be different!

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

​ ​

We will teach you how to write without errors and tell stories in an interesting way

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The 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. nine0008

What are vowels and sounds

Vowel sounds are those sounds that we freely convey with our voice. This is where 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 word spruce the letter e expresses two sounds - [y'] and [e]. Let's look at the table all the vowel sounds and the letters that represent them.

Letter

Sound

Example

a [a] pharmacy
i

[a]

[d'] + [a]

change

anchor

at [y] moon

[y]

[y'] + [y]

love

skirt

about

[o]

[a]

horse

milk

e

[e]

[y'] + [e]

[and]

victory

raccoon

great

e

[o]

[d'] + [o]

rope

hedgehog

e

[e]

evolution

and

[and]

[s]

caviar

life

s

[s]

choice

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. nine0008

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:

Sound
Impact position
Unstressed position
[and]
large
prize money
[a]
chess
spruce
[y]
frog
empty

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].

After a hard consonant
After a soft consonant
[live]
p[r'i]kaz
[wa] yes
[s'u] yes
[woo]lcan
[v'i]trina

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. nine0008

Task 1

List all the vowels in these words:

  • fair,

  • rejoice,

  • doll,

  • distant,

  • buddy,

  • voting,

  • mirror,

  • story,

  • ok,

  • captivate.

  • 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,

    • nice,

    • 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.


    Learn more