Learning what letters sound like is the most crucial step in learning to read. The sounds of consonants, however, seem to come much easier to children than vowel sounds do. For starters, they cannot be felt in the mouth as easily as consonants can and it is also harder for children to hear them in regular everyday speech.
Is My Child Ready To Learn Vowels?
It is important to know if your child is ready to learn vowel sounds before attempting to teach them. This often follows their ability to sound out consonants and can be noted as they attempt to spell certain words. In most cases, a child who has learned consonants but not vowels, will simply omit them when trying to write the word, while others use the wrong vowel, such as putting an “E” where an “A” should go.
What Vowels Should Be Taught First?
Another important fact in teaching vowels to a child is starting with short vowels sounds. They are easily to understand and can be explored by using word families, or words that sound the same and are spelled relatively similarly.
With the short vowel sounds, start with only one word family at a time, so as not to confuse your child right from the start. An example would be teaching words such as: cat, pat, sat, bat, and so forth. Once they learn that these words can be spelled and sounded out in this way, it becomes a very powerful tool for building on those concepts on down the road.
The Best Teaching Aids
The best place to start when teaching vowels is to use visuals. They are not only effective, but they teach the letter shapes and in many cases, accompany a picture of something that uses that particular vowel sound, such as “A is for ant”.
Visuals greatly help to solidify what the child is learning about speech, language, letter sounds and eventually, writing. Using a visual can make all the difference in the world, especially when coupled with parents who get involved in the learning process.
Stories are another great way to teach the letter sounds, and are closely related to visual aids. A story is actually a collection of visuals in which the same short vowel sound can be repeated, through different words.
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