LilMama Posted July 30, 2009 Share Posted July 30, 2009 Hi, I have started going through AAS level 1. I am a little confused by the a sound. There is the a sound as in cat and lake. They give an ex. of a third a sound with water. To me, that is the the short o sound. Now, what about words like aqua or all the female names with a at the end. To me, that is more of an ah or uh sound ( I would pronounce those the same). So, what do you do for that third a sound? TIA! LilMama Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mktyler Posted July 30, 2009 Share Posted July 30, 2009 Some programs choose to neglect the schwa sound (unstressed /uh/) and instead fold words with it into other sounds or require the student to pronounce it as the short sound. So 'aqua' would be initially pronounced as /awkwaw/ and adjusted to sound like the real word /awkwuh/. This is meant to simplify what needs to be memorized and encourage proper articulation. I personally prefer to say there is a 4th sound for the letter 'a' -- /uh/. Melissa Minnesota Reading Program Junkie dd(11) dd(7) ds(5) ds(1) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
razorbackmama Posted July 30, 2009 Share Posted July 30, 2009 Hi, I have started going through AAS level 1. I am a little confused by the a sound. There is the a sound as in cat and lake. They give an ex. of a third a sound with water. To me, that is the the short o sound. Now, what about words like aqua or all the female names with a at the end. To me, that is more of an ah or uh sound ( I would pronounce those the same). So, what do you do for that third a sound? TIA! LilMama Yes, the third sound IS /ah/, like in father. It is VERY similar to a short o sound, and probably a lot depends on where you grew up. Do you have the phonogram CD? It might help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LilMama Posted July 30, 2009 Author Share Posted July 30, 2009 Yes, I do have the CD. I have not used it yet. But, I guess I should. It does seem to me that there should be four sounds. So, the third 'a' is /ah/ as in father, ball, water, etc. I think I might teach the fourth sound /uh/, if that's how it should be spelled, since we have two names that end with 'a' in this household. BTW, I grew up on the west coast, but now live in the South! People in the south consider me to have a flat accent, and people from CA consider me to have a slight southern accent. At least I've lost the valley girl accent I used to have...:) LilMama Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MerryAtHope Posted July 31, 2009 Share Posted July 31, 2009 Yes, I do have the CD. I have not used it yet. But, I guess I should. It does seem to me that there should be four sounds. So, the third 'a' is /ah/ as in father, ball, water, etc. I think I might teach the fourth sound /uh/, if that's how it should be spelled, since we have two names that end with 'a' in this household. BTW, I grew up on the west coast, but now live in the South! People in the south consider me to have a flat accent, and people from CA consider me to have a slight southern accent. At least I've lost the valley girl accent I used to have...:) LilMama A is not the only letter that can take on the schwa sound, the other vowels can too. A schwa sound happens when a vowel sound gets muffled in unaccented syllables. If the short U sound was added to every vowel, it would be confusing, especially to young spellers trying to decide which vowel to use for short u CVC words. Instead, AAS teaches to pronounce words for spelling when the vowel sound is muffled. You'll see this in Level 2 when they have words like cabin, open etc... When we say them quickly, they can sound like cabun, opun etc..., but if we slow down a bit and pronounce for spelling, it's easier to hear the vowel. HTH! Merry :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LilMama Posted July 31, 2009 Author Share Posted July 31, 2009 It makes my head hurt thinking about it, but I do get it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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