Teaching Short Vowel Sounds with Video Demonstrations

Short vowel sounds are often very hard for children to learn. It is easy to confuse one sound with another.

1. One way for a child to hear the difference between short vowel sounds is to replace short vowel sounds for a vowel sound in a child's name. Here's a video showing how this is done.


2. Sometimes I play a game with hearing and saying short vowel sounds.


3. I like to show a child how changing a vowel sound can change a three letter word into a completely new word.

Teaching Short Vowel Sounds with Video Demonstrations

Syllables in Words

This post will focus on the basic skill of hearing syllables in words.
Hearing syllables is part of a larger skill set called phonological awareness.

Syllables in Songs, Poems, and Stories:
Syllables are the beat of words. You can show your child the beat of words by clapping syllables in songs, poems, and favorite books you read to your child. You don't always have to clap. Be creative. You can use a musical instrument, nod your head, tap your fingers, or stomp your feet. Your child will eventually join you and do it on his or her own in time.

Syllables in the World:
You can practice hearing syllables anytime with your child. Sneak in clapping, tapping, nodding or stomping syllables in words at different times of the day until you know your child understands syllables. You can practice syllables of family names, objects in the room, names of stores, or places you've visited.

Syllables in Words

Phonological Awareness Is an Often Overlooked Reading Skill

Phonological Awareness is the ability to hear, say, and manipulate the sounds in language. Phonological Awareness: Instructional and Assessment Guidelines 

Most of my research outlines the skills of phonological awareness as: rhyming songs, sentence segmentation, syllable segmentation and blending, onset-rime blending and segmentation, and blending and segmenting individual phonemes. The skills are listed in order of easy to more difficult.

This video I found on YouTube may help you make more sense of phonological awareness.


Here are some printable activities.

If you want to practice rhyming, try reading nursery rhymes and other books with rhyme.

Try this fun online reading game to practice phonological awareness with a child:
Pumpkin Patch

Be sure to check out this resource page to learn more about phonological awareness.

Phonological Awareness Is an Often Overlooked Reading Skill