Sue G in PA Posted February 17, 2010 Share Posted February 17, 2010 My 7yo still confuses the sounds of 'e' and 'i'. I correct him, gently, every time but sometimes he will be adament that I am wrong and HE is right! I had him watch me say each sound...mouth open wide for 'e' and lips pursed for 'i' and had him mimic...just trying to exagerrate each sound. Still...he confuses. Is this normal? He is a late reader...still only halfway through The Reading Lesson. Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Classically Minded Posted February 17, 2010 Share Posted February 17, 2010 My 7yo still confuses the sounds of 'e' and 'i'. I correct him, gently, every time but sometimes he will be adament that I am wrong and HE is right! I had him watch me say each sound...mouth open wide for 'e' and lips pursed for 'i' and had him mimic...just trying to exagerrate each sound. Still...he confuses. Is this normal? He is a late reader...still only halfway through The Reading Lesson. Thanks. My dd6 does this and I just keep correcting her as she reads and figure one day it will click and she will be tired of me correcting her short e and i sounds. :confused: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JenAL Posted February 17, 2010 Share Posted February 17, 2010 My ds6 (almost 7) does this as well. He is just now really improving with his reading, but he still confuses the short e & i sounds. When he does it, I just say "no, it's a short i sound" and he'll correct himself. I don't know what else to do. We go over it a lot & the words he knows, he reads right. It's new words that he is trying to sound out that he does this...and it's not every time, either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stormy weather Posted February 17, 2010 Share Posted February 17, 2010 sometimes he will be adament that I am wrong and HE is right! QUOTE]:lol: Hmm, this is sounding strangely familiar.... He'll get it. I'll bet one day it will just click. We used the Spalding Phonogram cards, but not the whole WRTR. The cards seemed to drill into their sweet brains that there is more than one sound for these vowels, plus I hold the cards up while facing them(the dc) and say the sounds, so they can see my mouth at the same time as the card. Another thing that helped Dee-Dee was saying the sound the letter makes while she was writing it for penmanship. Hope this helps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Homeschooling6 Posted February 17, 2010 Share Posted February 17, 2010 My 7yo still confuses the sounds of 'e' and 'i'. I correct him, gently, every time but sometimes he will be adamant that I am wrong and HE is right! I had him watch me say each sound...mouth open wide for 'e' and lips pursed for 'i' and had him mimic...just trying to exaggerate each sound. Still...he confuses. Is this normal? He is a late reader...still only halfway through The Reading Lesson. Thanks. Yes, it's normal. I read somewhere that at that age many children don't even hear the difference. Kind of like the 'r' sound. My 9yr old still say /w/ for /r/. Because he is older I'm working on it;) But regarding the 'e' and the 'i' just continue stressing the sound. Your son is saying he's right because he is "hearing" and "saying" it right. My dd has a speech impediment and the 'e' and 'i' are still hard for her but she has improved a lot. You can have him say the sounds in front of the mirror. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WishboneDawn Posted February 17, 2010 Share Posted February 17, 2010 Could you give him a phrase he could remember that would demonstrate the difference? Like "Icky pet"? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnandtinagilbert Posted February 17, 2010 Share Posted February 17, 2010 Yes, it's normal. I read somewhere that at that age many children don't even hear the difference. Kind of like the 'r' sound. My 9yr old still say /w/ for /r/. Because he is older I'm working on it;) But regarding the 'e' and the 'i' just continue stressing the sound. Your son is saying he's right because he is "hearing" and "saying" it right. My dd has a speech impediment and the 'e' and 'i' are still hard for her but she has improved a lot. You can have him say the sounds in front of the mirror. :iagree: ds7 still likes to argue with me about those sounds....darn r's as w's...I wish those would go away! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2_girls_mommy Posted February 17, 2010 Share Posted February 17, 2010 I am feeling your pain on this one. I was working w/dd5 on phonics today, and she cannot distinguish between short e and short i. I can't blame her though. I was raised pronouncing short e as i, and it is unnatural for me to say it correctly even though I am trying now. My older dd seemed to get it easily once we started school, but I am really having to work on it w/younger dd! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staci in MO Posted February 17, 2010 Share Posted February 17, 2010 When my Kindergarten teacher tried to tell me that "pen" was not pronounced "pin," I thought she was nuts. I still catch myself saying "hin" instead of "hen" and "pin" instead of "pen." My kids had trouble with it, too. Once they got older, they understood the difference, but we still don't always pronounce it correctly. I'm not trying to make light of it. Just wanted to illustrate that even though my kids live in an area where the short "e" sound is rarely pronounced correctly, they eventually understood the difference. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Homeschooling6 Posted February 17, 2010 Share Posted February 17, 2010 :iagree: ds7 still likes to argue with me about those sounds....darn r's as w's...I wish those would go away! Me too. Tired of hearing 'wabbit' or 'wrose' instead of rose.:001_huh: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
squirtymomma Posted February 17, 2010 Share Posted February 17, 2010 You may be already doing this, but my mom mentioned to my dd that you shape your mouth like the shape of the 'e' - big and round, and narrow for 'i'. That seemed to help her distinguish the difference and connect what she saw to what she said. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sue G in PA Posted February 17, 2010 Author Share Posted February 17, 2010 You may be already doing this, but my mom mentioned to my dd that you shape your mouth like the shape of the 'e' - big and round, and narrow for 'i'. That seemed to help her distinguish the difference and connect what she saw to what she said. That is sort of like what I am doing. "Kissy lips" for the short i sound...you cannot pronounce any other sound when you have "kissy lips" and a big open mouth for short e. He is getting better...just very slowly. None of my others had this difficulty. This child is, by far, my most challenging when it comes to teaching reading. Just.not.interested. BUT, he does LOVE to be read TO...so we do a ton of that. I figure he won't be going off to college not knowing how to read so why worry? Right? :001_huh: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Just Robyn Posted February 17, 2010 Share Posted February 17, 2010 Could you give him a phrase he could remember that would demonstrate the difference? Like "Icky pet"? Better yet would be minimal pairs like pin - pen bit - bet pig - peg etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Closeacademy Posted February 18, 2010 Share Posted February 18, 2010 To help my children understand the difference I got physical. What I did: for the short e sound I put my hand behind my ear like I am hard of hearing (I got this idea from the Leappad Letter factory DVD) for the short i sound I shrug my shoulders and shiver like I touched something icky This pretty much helps them keep them straight because for a lot of words where I live they make the same sound.:001_smile: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yslek Posted February 18, 2010 Share Posted February 18, 2010 Some regional dialects don't differentiate between those sounds--probably not your ds's excuse, though! ;) Dh pronounces "pin" and "pen" identically--drives me crazy. :tongue_smilie: He uses a sound in between /i/ and /e/ for both sounds. That said, he can hear (and say) the difference when the sounds are exaggerated. He thinks I'm ridiculously picky. I think that when he asks for a pin/pen, I'd like to know which he wants. I've been known to bring him the wrong item because I mis-understood him. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Just Robyn Posted February 18, 2010 Share Posted February 18, 2010 Some regional dialects don't differentiate between those sounds--probably not your ds's excuse, though! ;) Dh pronounces "pin" and "pen" identically--drives me crazy. :tongue_smilie: He uses a sound in between /i/ and /e/ for both sounds. That said, he can hear (and say) the difference when the sounds are exaggerated. He thinks I'm ridiculously picky. I think that when he asks for a pin/pen, I'd like to know which he wants. I've been known to bring him the wrong item because I mis-understood him. That's true; I didn't think about that, however, if there is no distinction in a given dialect, I don't see why one would ask about how to help their child distinguish between them, unless they want to train their child to speak in a different dialect from that in which they live. If the particular minimal pairs I threw out there are not minimal pairs in a given dialect, but others exist, one could use the method with their own examples. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 18, 2010 Share Posted February 18, 2010 This is amazing -- I thought my daughter was the only one who had trouble with the "i" and "e" sounds. She could not distinguish between them for years and it was only when she was around eleven that she could consistently distinguish and spell words correctly. Nothing, absolutely nothing, helped her distinguish between those two sounds but time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PollyOR Posted February 18, 2010 Share Posted February 18, 2010 I see someone already suggested the Leapfrog Letter Factory DVD. :thumbup1: I have to remind my 7yo (almost 8) every time. "Think about the old man in the rocking chair" while I cup my hand behind my ear and say "Eh?" When it is time to use short "i" I put my hand on her head and move my fingers like there is slime or something running down her hair and say "Ick!" It helps. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sue G in PA Posted February 18, 2010 Author Share Posted February 18, 2010 Oh yeah! LF DVDs! I do remember that now! My dd4 LOVES watching them...ds7 not so much. Probably why dd4 doesn't have the problem but ds7 does. :glare: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caribbean Queen Posted February 18, 2010 Share Posted February 18, 2010 Click on lower case e to hear a song with the sound in it. http://www.starfall.com/n/level-k/index/load.htm?f Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ElizabethB Posted February 18, 2010 Share Posted February 18, 2010 Some of my Southern students have a problem with that, too. That's one reason my lesson 1 teaches i, lesson 2 teaches a, then lesson 3 teaches e. If you overteach i first, they figure out the difference easier. I emphasize their sounds, that seems to help. Here's what Don Potter does, it's very funny, I can see groups of his students doing this together, it makes a very funny picture in my head: My Texas kid have a huge problem distinguishing the sounds of short i and short e. I tell them that e takes a lot more energy. I have them beat on their chests and say ĕ ĕ ĕ ĕ ĕ. This has proven very helpful. One of my first graders probably never would have gotten it without that trick. There is something lazy about the mouth that make it prefer the short i. I teach them to distinguish pen and pin, din and den, etc. The short i is a more relaxed position than e, words with an e in them often "schwi" to short i, a and o are more likely to schwa toward the even more relaxed short u sound. E's also can schwa towards short u, as well as i's, but i's do not seem to schwa as often as a and o. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TracyR Posted February 18, 2010 Share Posted February 18, 2010 Yes, my almost 7 yr old actually gets A and I confused, and there is the infamous b and d. I just keep reminding her and like your son she'll say " No mom that's what I said and then she'll correct herself." Obviously denying that she said the sound wrong the first time. I just tell her she can think what she wants but the A does not make the I sound. LOL. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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