"special sounds" in Abeka (grade 2)

[heartlikealion]

My daughter goes to a private school that uses Abeka. They never send home workbooks, just worksheets. So, I had no point of reference on what they defined as a "special sound." It actually drives me crazy because apparently blends, digraphs, and phonograms all fall under that term. And things that I wouldn't even think to lump in there, either. 

What am I missing? Is this weird to anyone else? I looked up some of the special sounds charts online to see what is being taught as a special sound and found some weird (to me) items. On the preview slides from their website (here) I see "la" "ma" "li" "me" listed. Since when is "li" a special sound? Maybe I need an example. I don't know if "la" refers to the front of the word or end. Like koala? 

I just don't understand. For example, if I were teaching the word "like" I would teach that the e at the end is making the i use its long sound in this particular word. But I don't know why I would teach "li" as its own sound. But maybe this is helpful and just new to me. 

So if you use this program, do you think some of these charts isolate things you wouldn't necessarily think to teach as a special sound? And do you like this program? 

So far I think I've only really been confused once when it said circle the special sound and I saw two potential answers and wasn't sure what she should circle. I can't remember what the word was. 

Yes, I have thought of approaching the teacher but I don't think all the sheets she sends home even come straight out of the book and I often get pushback when dealing with the school (unanswered emails, etc). 

[purpleowl]

Based on my recollection from using Abeka (K4-1st) to teach my kids reading, things like la/ma/li/me are taught as blends, not special sounds. They have them practice blending sounds by doing things like a ladder of ba, be, bi, bo, bu with short vowel sounds and with long vowel sounds.

Special sounds are things like ch, sh, ough, scr, er, ing, etc. If a worksheet said to circle the special sounds and you had the word "bring," they want you to circle the br and the ing.

There are also rules like one-vowel (short sound) and two-vowel (first one long sound, second one silent). So "circle the special sounds and mark the vowels" for a word like "broke" would be circle the br, straight line above the o, / over the e.

ETA: I looked at the link - that's showing a set of charts that includes both special sound charts AND blend charts. Something like "li" isn't taught as its own sound, just practiced like any other combination of consonant+vowel. 

Edited November 2, 2022 by purpleowl