How to help child identify the vowel in CVC words?

[ExcitedMama]

 My 5.5 year old daughter is having trouble identifying the middle sound (the vowel) in CVC words. We are stuck in AAR Pre and I’m not sure how to help her. She can now identify the beginning and ending sounds but not the vowel. Any suggestions?

[sweet2ndchance]

It is a skill that just takes time and practice. The typical age range for being able to identify beginning, ending and medial sounds is 5 to 7 years old. So she's still on the young end of that range. Some kids pick it up quickly, for others, they can practice and practice but it just won't click until they are a little older. It is very typical for a child to be able to identify beginning and ending sounds long before they can identify medial sounds. They are just harder for our brains to hear sometimes.

Just keep practicing and "break" lots of words apart and then "glue" them back together. I'm sure it will click for her very soon.

[Lecka]

https://www.amazon.com/Phonemic-Awareness-Young-Children-Curriculum/dp/1557663211

You can look for this book or any of the “purchased with this book” books at the library to find more game ideas or ways to practice.  There is a lot out there. 

[MerryAtHope]

3 hours ago, ExcitedMama said:

 My 5.5 year old daughter is having trouble identifying the middle sound (the vowel) in CVC words. We are stuck in AAR Pre and I’m not sure how to help her. She can now identify the beginning and ending sounds but not the vowel. Any suggestions?

 

Identifying the middle sound is a more difficult skill than identifying beginning or ending sounds, and many children haven’t mastered that yet before moving on to AAR 1. It’s actually not one of the required Phonological Awareness Skills on the Level 1 Placement Test (it’s actually a spelling skill rather than a reading skill). Some children are not able to isolate that middle sound until the end of first grade. One of the reasons AALP recommends waiting on spelling until after AAR 1 is to allow time for skills like this one to develop. It’s easier for a child to see a vowel and say the sound than it is for them to hear a word and isolate that middle vowel sound by itself. Rhyming, where the child has to repeat the middle and ending sounds in a blended manner is also an easier skill. Does your daughter struggle with rhyming at all? That would be more of a concern. If she's done well with all of the other skills, I think I would move on and just continue to review this concept from time to time. She'll get it in time. HTH some!

[ExcitedMama]

Thanks Merry! She’s great at rhyming. 

Now I'm confused. I thought she was having trouble with the middle sound because she was stuck on this activity in AAR Pre but yesterday she aced it in Core Skills Phonics. It had her identify the vowel in CVC words. The only difference was that it was short vowel sounds.  Are long vowel sounds harder? She can do mop but not make. 

[EKS]

7 minutes ago, ExcitedMama said:

The only difference was that it was short vowel sounds.  Are long vowel sounds harder? She can do mop but not make. 

Yes they're harder!  Think about it--to figure out something is a long vowel, the kid needs to *read ahead* and many times not simply to the next letter (as in the word feed), but to the letter beyond the next letter (as in make).  Add to that the problem that once you get to longer words, the rules can be squishy (well, actually, they can be squishy with shorter words too, but we generally call those words "sight words").

I do remember my first grade teacher telling us that when you see one vowel right next to another, the second one makes the first one "say it's name."  And that the second vowel even has this power if it is separated by a consonant (as in make).  It doesn't always work, but it works enough for kids who prefer a big picture approach.

Be patient.  She'll get it.

 

[ElizabethB]

3 hours ago, EKS said:

Yes they're harder!  Think about it--to figure out something is a long vowel, the kid needs to *read ahead* and many times not simply to the next letter (as in the word feed), but to the letter beyond the next letter (as in make).  Add to that the problem that once you get to longer words, the rules can be squishy (well, actually, they can be squishy with shorter words too, but we generally call those words "sight words").

I do remember my first grade teacher telling us that when you see one vowel right next to another, the second one makes the first one "say it's name."  And that the second vowel even has this power if it is separated by a consonant (as in make).  It doesn't always work, but it works enough for kids who prefer a big picture approach.

Be patient.  She'll get it.

 

It is easier with words that start with that letter , such as: 

ate

each

ice

oat

use

 

[nixpix5]

We worked on phonics ladders. I would draw stairs on the board and write a chunk at each stair such as ba, be, bi, bo, bu. I would then have them go up and down the ladder. We did it through the alphabet. Then I would do ba, la, ma, na etc. After they could do that easily we would do bap, bep, bip, bop, bup...things like that. We would make the smiley above the vowel to show it was short. We used straight lines for long vowel sounds. We then moved to missing vowel in cvc words with at picture and they needed to fill in the missing vowel. 

[MerryAtHope]

8 hours ago, EKS said:

Yes they're harder!  Think about it--to figure out something is a long vowel, the kid needs to *read ahead* and many times not simply to the next letter (as in the word feed), but to the letter beyond the next letter (as in make).  Add to that the problem that once you get to longer words, the rules can be squishy (well, actually, they can be squishy with shorter words too, but we generally call those words "sight words").

I do remember my first grade teacher telling us that when you see one vowel right next to another, the second one makes the first one "say it's name."  And that the second vowel even has this power if it is separated by a consonant (as in make).  It doesn't always work, but it works enough for kids who prefer a big picture approach.

Be patient.  She'll get it.

 

 

The exercise she's working on in Pre-reading only focuses on hearing the sounds--not reading or identifying them in any way. Kids clap if they hear the /ay/ sound in a word that mom says. 

[MerryAtHope]

8 hours ago, ExcitedMama said:

Thanks Merry! She’s great at rhyming. 

Now I'm confused. I thought she was having trouble with the middle sound because she was stuck on this activity in AAR Pre but yesterday she aced it in Core Skills Phonics. It had her identify the vowel in CVC words. The only difference was that it was short vowel sounds.  Are long vowel sounds harder? She can do mop but not make. 

 

I think I answered this for you on the AALP support group, but let me know if any other questions come up! 

[EKS]

38 minutes ago, MerryAtHope said:

The exercise she's working on in Pre-reading only focuses on hearing the sounds--not reading or identifying them in any way. Kids clap if they hear the /ay/ sound in a word that mom says. 

Oh--sorry--we never did any of that.  That would have thrown my visual learners for a loop.  Why not just start with real reading?

[MerryAtHope]

3 hours ago, EKS said:

Oh--sorry--we never did any of that.  That would have thrown my visual learners for a loop.  Why not just start with real reading?

 

Reading isn't just visual--the ability to blend individual sounds into words is a phonological awareness skill, for example. Pre-reading is about helping kids develop the skills they need for reading. Some kids may develop some of the skills "naturally," but others really need help to strengthen those skills. HTH!

[EKS]

10 hours ago, MerryAtHope said:

Reading isn't just visual--the ability to blend individual sounds into words is a phonological awareness skill, for example. Pre-reading is about helping kids develop the skills they need for reading. Some kids may develop some of the skills "naturally," but others really need help to strengthen those skills. HTH!

I understand that reading isn't just visual, but I don't see the point of doing exercises like that unless the kid is having some specific trouble. 

It seems like if you divorce the sound from the written piece it actually has the potential to make it more complicated than it needs to be.  In fact, the phonological piece is intimately tied to the written word.  If we wrote differently, say, using a syllabary, the parts to identify would be totally different.  In fact, even where we split words is essentially arbitrary.

[Lecka]

Well, there's research suggesting that many kids benefit by working orally first before adding in letters.  

On hearing long vowels or short vowels..... has she practiced more with short vowels than long vowels?  That could make a difference.  

Then, the more you move your mouth between sounds, it can make it easier to hear.  I think I move my mouth more going from a consonant to a short vowel, than to a long vowel.  I just tested it with a few words, so I'm not sure, but it seems that way.

That is a reason consonant blends were hard for my older son.  It makes it harder for him to learn to segment as he says a word, without missing a sound.    

[MerryAtHope]

6 hours ago, EKS said:

I understand that reading isn't just visual, but I don't see the point of doing exercises like that unless the kid is having some specific trouble. 

It seems like if you divorce the sound from the written piece it actually has the potential to make it more complicated than it needs to be.  In fact, the phonological piece is intimately tied to the written word.  If we wrote differently, say, using a syllabary, the parts to identify would be totally different.  In fact, even where we split words is essentially arbitrary.

 

Think about other games we play with young kids--rhyming games and reading nursery rhymes, tongue twisters, rhythm games like Miss Mary Mack, oral games like "I'm going to the zoo/grocery store..."--these are all additional ways of orally reinforcing phonological awareness that are actually helping prepare kids for reading. There are lots of fun things that you can do with young children before they are ready for a reading program.

Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that the types of activities the OP was working on were at a different stage than what you were thinking about. Some children are able to work on all of the skills at once (and some will just learn "naturally" and not need help in this area), but others need scaffolding, and working on the skills separately helps scaffold kids until they are ready to put all of these skills together. The program she is using is for pre-readers who are working on a variety of reading readiness skills. HTH!