What is sounding out words called

Phonological Awareness | Reading Rockets

Who can understand all the jargon that's being tossed around in education these days? Why is there a word for everything, and why do they have to be so confusing? Consider all the similar terms that have to do with the sounds of spoken words — phonics, phonetic spelling, phoneme awareness, phonological awareness, and phonology. All of the words share the same "phon" root, so they are easy to confuse, but they are definitely different, and each, in its way, is very important in reading education.

Phonics

Thanks to the popular "Hooked on Phonics" television commercials everybody has heard of phonics, but not everybody knows what it is. Phonics is a method of teaching that emphasizes letter-sound relationships. Children are taught, for example, that the letter N represents the sound /n/, and that it is the first letter in words such as nose, nice and new.

In addition, and this is something that most people don't think about when they think of phonics, children are explicitly taught the English spelling–sound "rules. " Children are taught things like "when two vowels go walkin' the first does the talkin'" and "when a word ends in a silent-e, the first vowel sound is long." Since no letter in English, except for the letter V consistently corresponds to a single sound, these rules are quite complex. Nose, nice, and new all start with the letter N, but gnu, knife, and pneumonia certainly do not. There are spelling and pronunciation rules, and then there are exceptions to the rules, and teachers who use the phonics approach try to formally and explicitly teach both.

For the purpose of discussion here, there are two important things to remember about phonics. First and foremost, phonics is an instructional strategy — a method of teaching children to read. Second, phonics has to do with teaching the relationships between the sounds in speech and the letters of the alphabet (both written and spoken). Typically, when somebody is talking about teaching children the "spelling–sound" relationships (or to use some of that psycho-babble ed-speak, the "grapho-phonemic" relationships), they are talking about teaching some form of phonics.

Phonetic spelling or reading

This is a concept which is related to phonics, but unlike phonics, which is a method of teaching reading, phonetic spelling or phonetic reading is a behavior that young readers exhibit when they are trying to write or read. When children spell words the way they sound, they are said to be phonetically spelling — for example, the word lion could be phonetically spelled L-Y-N, or the word move could be phonetically spelled M-U-V. Likewise, a child can phonetically read words — child phonetically reading the word two may say "twah", or the child may phonetically read the word laugh in such a way that it sounds like lag or log.

Phonology

Unlike phonics or phonetic reading and writing, phonology has nothing to do with the letters in our alphabet or the letter names (spoken or written. Phonology has to do with the ability to distinguish and categorize sounds in speech. Some words in English (in all languages actually) sound very similar, and are easily confused if you are not very sensitive to the distinctions. For some children with phonology deficits, pairs of words like mauve and moth or rate and late sound identical. They can not hear the difference between certain similar phonemes (speech sounds), and as a consequence, they can not hear the difference between certain words.

Phonological awareness

Like phonology, phonological awareness has nothing to do with the letters in our alphabet — it has to do with the sounds in spoken words. And while phonology refers to the ability to hear the difference between sounds in spoken words, phonological awareness refers to the child's understanding that spoken words are made up of sounds.

This fact is obvious to adults, but children do not usually realize that, within a word, there may be other words (in the case of compound words), or that words are made up of syllables and that syllables are made up of phonemes. Children without phonological awareness do not understand what it means for words to rhyme, they do not appreciate alliteration (words that start with the same sound), and they do not understand that some words are longer than other words (the spoken form, that is, not necessarily the written form — the word area in its spoken form is longer than the word though, but in its written form, area is the shorter word).

Phoneme awareness

The phoneme is the basic building block for spoken words. In English, for example, there are an infinite number of possible words, but there are only about 45 phonemes. To make new words, we just delete or rearrange the phonemes — mat becomes man when the phoneme /t/ is replaced with the phoneme /n/, and deleting the phoneme /m/ from man leaves you with the word an.

While phonological awareness is a general term describing a child's awareness that spoken words are made up of sounds, phoneme awareness is a specific term that falls under the umbrella of phonological awareness. Phoneme awareness refers to the specific understanding that spoken words are made up of individual phonemes — not just sounds in general (which would include syllables, onsets, rimes, etc.). Children with phoneme awareness know that the spoken word bend contains four phonemes, and that the words pill and map both contain the phoneme /p/; they know that phonemes can be rearranged and substituted to make different words.

Phonological awareness is a step in the right direction, but phoneme awareness is what is necessary for the child to understand that the letters in written words represent the phonemes in spoken words (what we call the "alphabetic principle"). We spend a lot of time teaching children that the letter M stands for the sound /m/, but we rarely make sure that children understand that words like milk, ham and family all contain the phoneme /m/, or that the difference between man and an is the deletion of the phoneme /m/.

Phoneme awareness can be demonstrated in a variety of ways. The easiest phoneme awareness task is called blending — an adult pronounces a word with a pause between each phoneme (e.g. /b/ /a/ /l/), and the child blends the phonemes together to make the word ("ball"). A more challenging assessment for children is the reverse, called phoneme segmentation — the adult says the whole word, and the child says the word with pauses between the phonemes (adult says "ball," child says /b/ /a/ /l/). Even more challenging is phoneme manipulation — the adult tells the child to say a word without a particular phoneme (say "boat" without the /t/), or the adult tells the child to add a phoneme to a word to make a new word (What word would you have if you added the phoneme /o/ to the beginning of "pen?"). If the child can reliably do any of these tasks, the child has demonstrated true phoneme awareness, but a relevant point to make here is that the child doesn't need to do much more than these tasks to demonstrate phoneme awareness.

It is possible, in fact it is easy, to create phoneme awareness tasks that are exceptionally tricky, but these should be avoided rather than exploited. English contains many confusing phonemes — there are diphthongs and glides that can confuse anybody, even mature, experienced readers (How many phonemes do you hear in pay?), and there are odd phonemes that are not universally defined (How many phonemes are in the word ring or fur?), and there are clusters of phonemes that are harder to segment than other phonemes (a cluster is a group of consonants that are perceived as a unit, sometimes until the child begins spelling — for example, the /pr/ in pray, the /gl/ in glow, and the /sk/ in school). It is important for the teacher to remember that the child doesn't need to be an Olympic champion at phoneme manipulation — the child just needs to demonstrate knowledge of the fact that spoken words are made up of phonemes. It is also important that the teacher understands that phoneme awareness is not a magic bullet; it is important, and it is necessary for reading success, but it is only one skill of many that support literacy.

Summary

To recap, phonics is an instructional approach that emphasizes the letter-sound relationships (which letters represent which sounds). Phonetic reading and writing is a behavior the child exhibits that involves "sounding out" words the way they are written or writing words the way they sound (again, relating to the way letters represent speech sounds). Phonology has to do with the ability to hear the difference between different speech sounds (and has nothing to do with letters of the alphabet). Phonological awareness is a term used to describe the child's generic understanding that spoken words are made up of sounds. Phoneme awareness specifically refers to a child's knowledge that the basic building blocks of spoken words are the phonemes.

Video: Letters and Sounds

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Sounding out words phonetically - How to Blend Sounds? AVOID this common mistake!

In this post, we are going to talk about sounding out words correctly, because this is a crucial skill for becoming a fluent reader.

But, wait, before you even start working on this skill with a child, he/she should be able to recognize the the individual in words, also called phonemes.

So, it is really important that before trying to sound out words, parents and/or educators have previously worked with the child on the letter names and the letter sounds at the same time.

When teaching your child to read, ALWAYS teach letter names and sounds at the same time.

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How to teach letter sounds correctly for future successful blending?

A very common mistake that parents and even educators make when teaching letter sounds is adding the “uh” sound at the end of consonants.

So, they would say the letter “C” makes the “cuh” sound, rather than the “c” sound.

It is important that we stop that very common habit, because it is going to present problems when we go from segmenting to blending.

Why? Well, we will be adding additional “uh” sounds to the words, and therefore creating words that do not make sense or ending up with different words entirely.

For instance:

The word “pit” – It is formed by the sounds /p/ /i/ /t/

When we push all of these sounds together, we get the word “pit”.

Let’s sound its individual sounds out adding the “uh” sounds… /puh/ /i/ /tuh/

What happens when we push these sounds together?

We get something that sounds something like “puituh”

It doesn’t make sense! How can the child the make sense of it?

I think this idea can be much better understood if you watch this video. You can skip directly to the minute 1:47

Once we have mastered the skill of hearing sounds in words, we can move on into pushing all the sounds together, so we can actually read words!

Our objective is to get the child to connect the sounds of a word and say the word without pause!

This is called blending the sounds.

The 2 ways of blending sounds

There are 2 different types of blending for you to practice with your child.

But, most likely, you haven’t heard of the second one that I am going to talk about.

This is because, normally, the sort of blending that you hear of and children are taught is what could be named “choppy blending”.

Choppy blending is when the sounds of a word are sounded out individually without connection.

For example, with the word “MAP”…

When we are doing Choppy blending we sound it out like this:

/m/ /a/ /p/

Between each of the sounds in MAP there’s a short pause, which will lead to a choppy blend.

With choppy blending, we are not making a “connection” between each of the sounds.

>> This can present problems for some children, as they are not able to figure out the connection.

If you want to see a demonstration of choppy blending go to the video above, and skip to minute 3:38.

That is why there are so many strategies out there trying to solve this. I am sure you may have heard of some, like moving your arms at the same time you are sounding out each individual sound, etc.

And, in fact, many children who have blending difficulties know the letter sounds perfectly, but then when they are “choppy blending” they just can’t figure it out.

This is because they have not grasped that there is actually a connection that needs to happen among all of those sounds.

They hear a brief pause, and they think that they are isolated sounds, not a word.

And this is when the second type of blending (smooth blending) comes into play….

Smooth Blending vs Choppy Blending

You probably haven’t heard of this one!

Smooth blending is quite the opposite of choppy blending. You sound out the words in a way that all the sounds are smoothly connected to say the actual word that you are reading.

So let’s compare:

CHOPPY blending MAP would sound /m/ /a/ /p/ – with a short pause in between each individual sound.
SMOOTH blending MAP would sound mmmmaaaaaap – note that we are streching the individual sounds and connecting them with each other.

I recommend that you go to the video above and skip to minute xxx.

If the difference between choppy blending and smooth blending is not clear enough in written, after watching the video, I am confindent that you will be able to see the difference!

So, since grasping the concept of making a connection among the individual sounds with choppy blending can be hard for many kids, you want to work on a mix of choppy blending and smooth blending. And, I would say, focus a lot more of smooth blending.

Tips & Considerations when practicing Smooth Blending

Bear in mind that there are some letter sounds that cannot be stretched. If you do try to stretch them, you end up altering them.

These sounds are: B, C, D, J, P, T, CH.

They are referred as stop sounds.

With these sounds, you do not try to stretch them out. Simply smoothly connect them to the next sound.

By the way, even if you focus more on smooth blending, you still can use choppy blending. Especially if, for whatever reason, you want to emphasize individual sounds.

When you are practicing blending, use your index finger to move along the letters that form the words that you are reading.

You will find sometimes some blending activity worksheets that have words underlined with an arrow pointing in the direction in which you need to read. This is precisely so you move your finger along the line as you are sounding out the different individual sounds. See the example below:

Move your index finger along, at the same time you are sounding out the sounds.

How to get started with sounding out words and blending?

So, how to get started with this?

I suggest that you start using simple CVC words.

These are words that follow the structure Consonant Vowel Consonant, and they are the easiest of all structures in the English language.

If you want a handy list of CVC words, you can find a link to download a list of CVC words here. Just remember to use the trick of moving your index finger along.

Ideally, you are doing this in the context of a phonics approach. And, ideally, in the context of a Synthetic Phonics approach.

Also, if you want to know more about helpful resources that you can use when working on this skill with your child, I will leave you more links at the very bottom of the article. You can also check our library of free resources for learning to read.

I didn’t want to finish without mention that you need to persevere and be patient.

Practice with your child. Repetition is really important to master this skill!

And, as I said, prioritize smooth blending over choppy blending!

Free Resources

Handy List of CVC Words
A – Z Alphabet Worksheets for Letter Recognition and Tracing!Find even more resources on our library of Free Resources!

Sound - definition, types and features

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Dubbing is the process of recording sound accompaniment for various types of material. This is a broad and vague definition, so in this article we will talk about voicing in the context of audiovisual translation, as well as some other types of voicing.

Dubbing

Dubbing involves the complete replacement of the original audio track with a translation voiced by dubbing actors. The task of dubbing is to minimize the foreignness of the original text and create a kind of illusion that the film was created in the target language.

One of the techniques used to create such an impression on the viewer is lip-slicing or laying the translated text according to the movements of the lips of the actors. After the translator submits the text to be dubbed, the stacker takes over. He adapts the translation so that the voiced text matches the lip movements of the actors on the screen.

Dubbing involves, in fact, voice-over acting - it's not for nothing that professionals who dub films are called voice actors. The quality of their work partly determines the impression that the viewer will get from watching a movie or playing a video game.

What is duplicated: movies, cartoons, series from well-known studios and services, video games . This is an expensive process, so large cash projects are completely duplicated.

Voiceover (voiceover)

Voiceover overlays the voice actors on top of the original audio track. The original audio track remains audible, but does not interfere with viewing. When offscreen, it is allowed for the original phrase to begin and end at the same time as the translated one.

What voices behind the scenes: YouTube videos, educational videos, series, films. In voice-over dubbing, author's and amateur translations of films and TV series often come out.

Another common voice-over case is translation of documentaries, interviews, educational materials. Often this type of dubbing is performed by one person or one female and one male voice. The costs for it are less than for dubbing, while it takes less time to create such voice acting.

Announcer dubbing

If the voice actor “plays” the voice, then the announcer “owns” it. The task of the dubbing actor is to convey the emotions and character of the hero, and the task of the announcer is to read the text in a set voice, clearly pronouncing the words.

Speakers can work with small amounts of information given a limited passage of text. It can be audio advertising, the voice of an answering machine or a navigator.

Audiobook announcer

A separate case of announcer's skill is voicing audiobooks. Specialists who voice fiction, historical and other literature are usually called readers. The task of the announcer is to convey information by correctly placing accents in speech. The reader has a more creative task, because the reader is a storyteller. With his voice, he brings the characters of the book to life and draws you into the story.

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What is dubbing? How dubbing is done for films and cartoons

What is dubbing? How does dubbing differ from polyphonic translation (voiceover)? How is dubbing done for films and cartoons? Peculiarities of differences in dubbing films and cartoonsQuality dubbing in the studio LANET PRODUCTION

Many people cannot imagine their leisure time without watching movies or series, and children without cartoons. The attention of viewers is often attracted by foreign tapes. Therefore, so that everyone can watch the selected film or cartoon in an understandable language, there is voice acting.

Dubbing of cartoons, films or series is the recording of the soundtrack of a film. Voice acting can be preliminary or subsequent. During preliminary dubbing, voices are first recorded, and then filming or animation is created, where the facial expressions of the characters correspond to the facial expressions of the actors. The essence of the subsequent dubbing is to create a soundtrack for an already filmed film. Such voice acting is performed by synchronizing the sound with the actions of the actors. As a rule, this method is used if it is impossible to obtain a high-quality soundtrack due to extraneous noise in the shooting conditions. Dubbing is a variation of subsequent dubbing.

Dubbing is a way of translating and dubbing films, cartoons and TV shows, when the original language is replaced and completely superimposed on the video. Abroad, dubbing video is a rarity. Mostly films are released in English, and, if necessary, subtitles are used in the screening. During the Soviet Union, there was practically no dubbing of foreign films into Ukrainian. However, as the years passed, power changed, and technology developed. Modern Ukrainian dubbing is done by specialized studios with the help of professional actors and high-quality equipment.

Dubbing has several features, in particular:

when selecting actors for dubbing, their voice age, character's temperament and original voice and timbre are taken into account;
for duplication, a special text stacking and translation processing is formed;
Each actor must be voiced by a different person. However, there were cases when one dubbing actor voiced several characters. As a rule, this is a professional actor and only specialists can recognize such voice acting
Acoustic conditions must be observed during dubbing. For example, if an actor is talking in the bathroom, then the voice of the understudy should also sound with an echo. Other noises and off-screen dubbing (narrator's voice) are also recorded separately.

Along with dubbing, off-screen translation is often used:

one-voiced - when the entire film is dubbed by one dubbing actor;
two-voiced – all female performers are voiced by one woman, and male actors are voiced by one actor;
polyphonic voice acting is the most popular option. Each character is voiced by a different dubbing actor.

In a multi-voiced translation, voice acting is superimposed over the original language of the film actors. You can hear it in the background, at about 30 percent volume. Translation - 70 percent - sounds a little behind. But if we are talking about dubbing, then the original soundtrack of the actors is completely turned off, and the entire text is voiced by dubbing actors. That is, when viewing, viewers hear the entire text in their native language. It is difficult to say which voice acting method is better, because each has its own advantages. Dubbing completely immerses the viewer into the atmosphere of the film. On the other hand, polyphonic translation allows you to hear the original voices of the actors, their timbre and intonation. This is the main difference between dubbing and voiceover. It is dubbing and multi-voiced translation behind the scenes that is most often used in the translation of films and cartoons.

Dubbing isn't the most difficult type of voice acting. The audience should be under the impression that the actors playing the roles are talking. For a good result, the following are involved in the work: translators, dubbing director, assistant director, author of simultaneous text (stacker), sound recording engineer and dubbing actors. Languages differ from each other, so when it comes to voicing English words in Ukrainian, you need to adjust the translation to the articulation of the film actors. Sometimes you have to change phrases so that the translation looks natural.

As a rule, dubbing actors are recorded in turn. This is done so that you can create a multi-channel soundtrack and have the opportunity to edit any inaccuracies. In addition, voice acting sometimes requires scenes with off-screen noise from an airport, train station, school, hospital, and even a market. Several dubbing actors are involved in this.

At first glance, it may seem that the work of a dubbing actor is easier than that of a full-fledged actor. However, it is not. After all, you need not only to read the text from a sheet in the studio, but also to fully get used to the role without an appropriate atmosphere for this. The dubbing actor plays the role without scenery, lighting, makeup and does not interact with other actors in the film. The voice is his only tool to get used to the role. In some cases, different roles take a long time to complete. There have been cases where actors have been cast in a role with only text and voice for months, and the dubbing process takes from several hours to several weeks. However, significant efforts and painstaking work on oneself justify the result. Thanks to the work of dubbing actors, we can watch foreign films effortlessly.

The dubbing of cartoons and films is slightly different from each other. During the dubbing of cartoons, large companies first invite actors, and then adjust the script and character images for them. The recording begins with work on the sound track, and then the movements of the lips of the characters are drawn under it. Abroad, well-known actors often voice cartoons. For example, Zed from Antz was voiced by Woody Allen, and Eddie Murphy was voiced by donkey from Shrek. In Japan, anime voice actors are called seiyuu. There are even special courses, which are very difficult to get into because of the great competition. A professional seiyuu must be able to speak in different voices and sing. It happened that after training, students went to the stage and became famous singers. Interestingly, most of the voice actors are girls. They even voice male roles.

Film dubbing takes place in several technical stages. First, the text is translated, then the so-called assembly sheet is formed from it. It spelled out the timing and all the replicas. It is important that the text for the voiceover match the timing of the original, otherwise the audio track will lag behind the video sequence. This phenomenon is called out of sync. After translation, the text is edited. In professional and large studios, this is done by the stacker. He is responsible for ensuring that the voice acting of the translation corresponds to the image on the screen. If everything is done in sync, then the viewer should get the impression that the actors playing the roles are talking. This is the basic principle of dubbing. Only after translation and conclusion does the dubbing actor receive the final version of the text for dubbing. This process, in addition to advantages, has a disadvantage. This is the effect of the so-called broken phone. Since the text goes through a translator, editor and stacker, the soundtrack of the film may differ slightly from the original.

You can dub not only feature films, cartoons, series or computer games, but also presentations, promotional videos, educational or documentaries. As you already understood, there are different types of voice acting, so the specialists of the LANET PRODUCTION dubbing studio in Kyiv will not only help you decide which one is best for you, but also taking into account all your wishes, they will make high-quality voice acting.