Opgtr: lesson 90 what is the rule?

[mmpmelmack]

DS is big on rules. When we did lesson 90 today, he was mad! And I quote:"how am I supposes to know when ea says long a and when ea says long e?". Well dear child I don't know, so we tabled the lesson, and I need some sort of rule for him. I can't really find one. Is this how opgtr will be for the rest of the book? Do I need to find a different program? He loves rules. He has done very well to this point. TIA!

 

Melissa

[nono]

Oh! Is that wear they introduce the word "steak?" I almost threw the book across the room!

 

I made up a rule -- when there's two vowels, usually the first one says it's name, unless it's in a sulky mood. In that case, the second one will say its name, just to compensate for #1's mood.

 

My kids :lol::lol::lol: and it seems to have worked. I'm hoping to pick up the official rule to knit back into the fold in early fall in EtC.

[8filltheheart]

DS is big on rules. When we did lesson 90 today, he was mad! And I quote:"how am I supposes to know when ea says long a and when ea says long e?". Well dear child I don't know, so we tabled the lesson, and I need some sort of rule for him. I can't really find one. Is this how opgtr will be for the rest of the book? Do I need to find a different program? He loves rules. He has done very well to this point. TIA!

 

Melissa

 

No, a different program will not help. There is no rule to determine when it says which sound. Just as there is no rule as to when to use ea to say a vs. eigh, etc. The closest you can get is frequency order. Have him decode the word in that order and typically it is easy to realize which pronunciation is correct.

 

FWIW.....English is highly rule based for decoding for reading. The rules do apply to spelling as well when decoding why they are spelled a certain way. However, given a word like "neighbor", there is no way to determine which phonograms are used to construct the word w/o simply having memorized them. Naber would be just as correct based on "rule" spelling. Na/ber......vowels say their long sound at the end of an open syllable, etc.

 

It is simply something that students have to learn to deal with. :tongue_smilie:

[Lovedtodeath]

I do not know of any rule for this. There are many phonograms that say more than one sound for no reason that we know of. :) I have been using Phonics Road, which is really big on including all of the rules and reasons (like origin), so I don't think this particular point is any failing of OPGTR.

[nmoira]

DS is big on rules. When we did lesson 90 today, he was mad! And I quote:"how am I supposes to know when ea says long a and when ea says long e?". Well dear child I don't know, so we tabled the lesson, and I need some sort of rule for him. I can't really find one. Is this how opgtr will be for the rest of the book? Do I need to find a different program? He loves rules. He has done very well to this point. TIA!

 

I don't think there are any hard and fast rules. Repetition helps, as does having an attack strategy:

 

 

• "ea" is usually long e

• "ea" is frequently short e

• "ea" is sometimes long a (steak, break, great, etc.)

 

It's easiest if the "ea" sounds in an unfamiliar word are attempted in the above order.

 

Additionally:

 

• "ear" usually but not always goes like in heard (exceptions hear, ear, fear, etc.)

 

[boscopup]

I would just say that "ea" can say /ee/, /eh/, /ay/, and you just have to try it and figure out which one makes sense. :tongue_smilie:

 

This is one reason I'm kind of glad my rules-based kid taught himself to read. :lol: We still get these questions in spelling though! So that's why we're using AAS instead of Sequential Spelling (where on the first lesson, he was already asking "why"). Learning the phonograms has really helped with the "why". No, he can't necessarily know which version of /ay/ is used for "neighbor", but he at least knows he only has certain phonograms to try out, and then he just needs to look at the word and think "Does that look right?" ;)

Edited July 7, 2011 by boscopup
Fixed sound order for 'ea' phonogram

[nono]

But the rule is "Usually, the first one does the talking", right?

 

Are there any instances of vowel pairs where the second one does the talking more frequently than the first?

 

Or are you looking for a rule such as "After a t, "ea" says Long A." <---I am hopeful someone may have decoded the language enough that we might actually have some rules for it, just not commonly known.

[nmoira]

 

This is one reason I'm kind of glad my rules-based kid taught himself to read.

I didn't have to worry about any of this with my eldest, a self-taught sight reader. :tongue_smilie: The only word she consistently had problems with in the early days was "steak" because she'd never heard the word before in context (we're not big meat eaters).

[boscopup]

But the rule is "Usually, the first one does the talking", right?

 

That's not really a rule. It's a saying that isn't true, so the phonogram purists avoid it like the plague. :lol:

[nono]

That's not really a rule. It's a saying that isn't true, so the phonogram purists avoid it like the plague. :lol:

 

Clever snipping of my quote, but you didn't answer the question that was posed. And clearly, with my third question that was also edited out of the quote, I don't pretend to be even close to a phonogram specialist. Let alone a purist. :)

[nmoira]

Clever snipping of my quote, but you didn't answer the question that was posed. And clearly, with my third question that was also edited out of the quote, I don't pretend to be even close to a phonogram specialist. Let alone a purist. :)

 

The answer to your question is yes, "ie" is usually pronounced as a long e. The "rule" fails more than it works, IIRC.

[nono]

The answer to your question is yes, "ie" is usually pronounced as a long e. The "rule" fails more than it works, IIRC.

 

Thanks! That is helpful. :)

 

I'm going through a splitting hairs transition of bank accounts out of the Wachovia/Wells mess, and I feel like today is the day I ask questions, and people just like to talk around my questions, not answer them.

[boscopup]

Thanks! That is helpful. :)

 

I'm going through a splitting hairs transition of bank accounts out of the Wachovia/Wells mess, and I feel like today is the day I ask questions, and people just like to talk around my questions, not answer them.

 

I thought I had answered the question by saying that wasn't really a rule. I was not cleverly snipping anything. I just snipped. There was nothing clever about it. I'm not that clever. :lol:

[Murmer]

Don't know the rule...but when I taught this to my first graders I made a game with lots and lots of different ea words and had them practice sounding them out...if they got it right (meaning they tried the 3 different sounds and picked the right one) they got to rule the dice and move, if they got it wrong they got to try the next word. With the phonograms that don't really have rules I did this just so there was fun practice and kids start to figure out which ones say what.

Edited July 6, 2011 by Murmer
whoops spelled some stuff wrong grr

[Lovedtodeath]

I don't think there are any hard and fast rules. Repetition helps, as does having an attack strategy:

 

 

I would just say that "ea" can say /eh/, /ee/, /ay/, and you just have to try it and figure out which one makes sense. :tongue_smilie:

Oh yeah, Phonics Road, WRTR and SWR do have you learn the sounds in order from most frequent to least frequent, so I guess that is a little more than other programs might have.

[Critterfixer]

This is not a rule, but it seems to make sense to me, so when I got to that lesson in OPTGR I approached it in this way.

 

Stake vs steak-they sound the same, they are spelled differently so that we can tell the meanings just by reading them in isolation. (If you send me a badly ripped up and bloody letter by carrier pigeon requesting ten stakes, I'll know you are in a fight with a horde of vampires, and not asking for ten steaks to distract the werewolves with.) I don't know how true that is, but it did make that part of the lesson understandable.

Edited July 7, 2011 by Critterfixer

[boscopup]

Stake vs steak-they sound the same, they are spelled differently so that we can tell the meanings just by reading them in isolation. (If you send me a badly ripped up and bloody letter by carrier pigeon requesting ten stakes, I'll know you are in a fight with a horde of vampires, and not asking for ten steaks to distract the werewolves with.) I don't know how true that is, but it did make that part of the lesson understandable.

 

That totally explains why they're spelled differently! :lol:

 

Love it!

[Penelope]

This is why I teach the AAS (or SWR or WRTR, they are all nearly identical) phonograms before I use OPGTR. It helps a lot. By the time we get to the lesson where we use the less frequent sound, they already know it makes 3 sounds and what they are. Then when we practice and they have trouble I can say "third sound of ea" and they get it.

[JenniferLynn]

Hi,

 

We made a long vowel sorting game with these words on flashcards and my daughter reads them and puts them in the A,E,I,O, or U bucket. Sometimes we just focused on a few buckets, like A/E/I combos. We are almost done with OPGTR but still periodically do this for review.

 

Jennifer

[AppleGreen]

I would just say that "ea" can say /eh/, /ee/, /ay/, and you just have to try it and figure out which one makes sense.

 

 

 

Oh yeah, Phonics Road, WRTR and SWR do have you learn the sounds in order from most frequent to least frequent, so I guess that is a little more than other programs might have.

 

Yes, so in order of frequency the sounds ea makes are: /ee/, /eh/, /a/ PR includes a little hand gesture as a cue, as well.

 

And yeah, I think this is my 200th post! :)

[Lovedtodeath]

This is why I teach the AAS (or SWR or WRTR, they are all nearly identical) phonograms before I use OPGTR.

Here is a link so that everyone can see how that is done: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMAQLW4hIEk

[justasque]

The first few times we came across something that didn't follow the rules, it was something that came from French. So after a few experiences, my ds concluded that anything that didn't follow the rules was "French or something", and he was OK with that, and since he was happy I wasn't messing with it. He went on to study Latin but not French, and all is well.

[boscopup]

Here is a link so that everyone can see how that is done: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMAQLW4hIEk

 

Thanks for that video! I'm bookmarking it! :)

 

And I apologize for my wrong sound order for 'ea'... It's correct in the AAS level 3 book. I just wrote it wrong! They do say /ee/, /eh/, /ay/ in that order. :) I'll go back and correct my first post.