May 17th

Today's preparation project consisted of creating a phonetic chart of all the sounds in the English language.  I used Educational Insight's LipSync (Copyright 2003) for the majority of the cards.  I supplemented the rest of the phonemes by creating cards (in Microsoft Word) based on the words and sounds found in Sing, Spell, Read, and Write (Sue Dickson, Copyright Pearson, Inc.).

My hope is to teach students most of the phonetic spellings that result in certain sounds.  The way the sounds are arranged has a pattern to it.

If you start with the "E for Eagle" card in the top left and move to the right, ending with "oo for balloon", your jaw does not move to make the sounds.  You only lose your smile; you don't pull your lips back.

Starting with the same sound, moving down, your jaw drops.  This pattern continues only for the top quadrant.

Along the top left quadrant, all the sounds are diphthongs, which require a blend of two vowel sounds to be produced correctly.

The bottom section contains the consonant sounds.  Related sounds are placed next to each other.  For example, /p/ is formed in the same way as /b/.  The only difference is that one requires the use of vocal chords (/b/) and the other does not (voiced and non-voiced, respectively).

The layout of this chart allows me to easily teach the discrimination of sounds, as well as phonics.  For many years, I have struggled to combine these two skills for English language learners.  This solution is far from perfect (or inclusive), but it is better than anything I have used in the past.  I will use a different chart to teach alphabetical order.