Hello! Last time, you practised the sounds of English letters. Today those sounds get to join together and make words. You will read short words aloud, listen for the sounds inside them, and write the letters you hear. Your teacher can explain a direction in Arabic if you need help, but let your mouth try the English words.
Get a pencil and paper ready. You will also need three small things to move, such as buttons or pieces of paper.
Three sounds make a word
Look at cat. It has three letters. Say the sounds, not the letter names: /k/ /a/ /t/. Now say them closer together: cat! Joining sounds to read a word is called blending.
Your teacher can say /m/ /a/ /p/ slowly. Listen, bring the sounds together, and say map. Try it again with /h/ /a/ /t/. If the word does not come at first, that is fine: say the sounds again, a little closer together.
Here are some word-and-picture cards. The dots under each word give you a place to touch for each sound.
Start with map, hat, cat, and tap. For each card, touch the three dots while saying the three sounds. Then slide your finger along the arrow and say the whole word. Look at the letters before the picture; afterward, check whether the picture matches what you read.
Listen, tap, and say
Now let your ears help your eyes. In Pound and Sound from Jack Hartmann Kids Music Channel, each raised finger stands for one sound in a word.
Pound and Sound© | Jack Hartmann
Watch Jack Hartmann break short words into sounds. Join in with your fingers rather than only listening.
Watch four short words beginning with cat and bat. Then watch more words, beginning with bug and rug. Raise one finger for each sound you hear, then say the whole word.
A word can change when one sound changes. Say cat and bat with your teacher. Their last two sounds are the same; listen carefully to the first sound. Point to cat and bat on the picture cards and read them once more.
Put sounds into boxes
Blending helps you read. To spell, you can do the reverse: say a whole word, then listen for each sound inside it. This is called segmenting.
Draw three boxes on your paper. Your teacher says tap. Say tap back. Now say it slowly and move one button into a box for each sound: /t/, /a/, /p/. There are three sounds, so each box gets one letter:
| t | a | p |
Read your boxes from left to right. Do they say tap? Say the whole word aloud. Notice the letter at the end: without p, you would not have written the whole word.
Try the same routine with mat and sun, with your teacher saying each word before you write:
- Say the whole word.
- Tap or move a button for every sound you hear.
- Write one letter in each box.
- Read the word you wrote.
Your teacher can model a word first whenever you need to hear its sounds more clearly.
Meet the middle sound
The letter in the middle of these words is a vowel. Last lesson you met the short vowel sounds. Listen to how the middle sound changes in these words:
mat · pen · sit · top · sun
Your teacher can say each word while you tap its three sounds. Look at the middle letter after each turn: a, e, i, o, u. If two words sound close to you, ask to hear them slowly again.
Now return to the picture cards. Read pan, then pen from the line above, even though pen has no picture on the cards. Both begin with p and end with n. Watch the middle letter closely so that you say the word that is written, not the word you expected.
For a final writing turn, your teacher can say cat, pen, sit, top, and sun, one at a time. Use your three boxes for each word. Say its sounds as you write, then read your finished word aloud.
Keep your sounds together
You can now blend three sounds to read a word and segment a spoken word to spell it. Remember to check all three sounds: the beginning, the vowel in the middle, and the ending. Pictures can help you check your reading, but the letters tell you what the word says.
Next lesson, you will use short words you can read inside short sentences.