Where do you feel that sound?

Long ago I taught preschool. This preschool was attached to a private Catholic school in Denver all the way to 8th grade. The year I started they started a reading curriculum I loved. It broke down the sounds of each letter, not just A for apple but four total sounds for A. This made sense to me. As I went a long in my career it made even more sense, I did it with my daughter and it helped her tremendously. The only draw back, is that you’ll hear songs say, A is for apple and cringe (much like I do when someone calls it a Nemo fish poor clown fish.) So let’s get into it shall we?

What is it?

Breaking down sounds of letters is much like identifying with key on a piano matches to the note. Stick with me, a piano middle C will make the same pitch every time, so will most letter sound. Now the deep dive is that sounds interact with each other and E next to an A will make them play around. BUT this is withing the rules. We are only right now talking about the letter sounds.

Let’s get fancy

A letter sound is called a phoneme. There are 44 phonemes. Meaning there are only 44 sounds in the English language your mouth has to make. We connect these sounds to the letter or combination of letters that make these sounds. Once we memorize that a certain number of letters together make sounds, then we’ve got the task of putting them togeher and we’re READING. Sounds simple right?

What am I asking you to do?

In order for your child to memorize or know these sounds, we need to practice them. I’m aksing you to break them down slowly in your mouth and have your child do the same. It sounds weird but make the A as in Apple sound. Your mouth is open, air is coming out, and your vocal cords moving. The same thing is happening when you make the O as in orangutang but your mouth and lips move slighly. Go ahead try it, I’ll wait. If we can break this down for our kids, and they come to a letter or string of letters in a long word, we give them power over those sounds. Why? cause we made the early neuro pathways to cement these sounds. It’s long work, but if you pair it with shaving cream and over time it’s fun. Check out this post about it.

If you need a cheat sheet Here you go!