Forgetting the Terminology of Phonics

[domestic_engineer]

All my kids are past the learn-to-read stage, but many of them still often confuse the terminology of phonics.  Mostly it's confusion with whether a vowel sound is short or long.  So if I say the sound /ō/ and ask if that's the long or the short sound, they will often answer "short".  This happens >50% of the time and with all the vowels.  Dyslexia is present for at least 1 of the kids.  

So, how do I clear up this confusion?  Just gently correcting them during spelling and as the occasion arises isn't working.  Any ideas on how to make this association stick?  Bonus points if you have an idea that is not drill-n-kill.

[forty-two]

Don't have any ideas that aren't drill-n-kill, sorry, but at least it's just a like a minute a day.  The way Rewards Reading does it, is to differentiate between the "sound" of the vowel letter and the "name", probably because short/long don't really apply in English the way they do in Latin or Greek (where the difference really is "length of time you say the sound"), but you could do the same thing, just using short/long terminology.  It can be hard to logic out in English which is which, though, since it doesn't always correlate well with the actual length of time the sound is said.

Anyway, the drill they have you do is to have "a e i o u" written across the page.  Then you say "point to the first letter" <they do>, "first say the sound (or short sound)"<e.g. /a/>, "then say the name (or long sound)" <e.g. /A/>.  Then "point to next letter" and so on.  Run through the list twice, correcting as necessary.  I usually hit the ones they miss an extra time or two.  Repeat most days till it's automatic.

Also, is the problem they just don't know the short/long classification (i.e. if you asked them to list the five short vowel sounds, they couldn't do it; ditto for the long sounds)?  Or is the problem that they aren't identifying the sounds correctly?  I.e. It's not that they don't know that /O/ is long, it's that they aren't necessarily *hearing* it correctly as /O/?

[domestic_engineer]

9 minutes ago, forty-two said:

Also, is the problem they just don't know the short/long classification (i.e. if you asked them to list the five short vowel sounds, they couldn't do it; ditto for the long sounds)?  Or is the problem that they aren't identifying the sounds correctly?  I.e. It's not that they don't know that /O/ is long, it's that they aren't necessarily *hearing* it correctly as /O/?

Thanks, 42, for the thoughtful reply. It’s helpful!  And this question is such an insightful question!  Thanks for asking it  

my eldest with this issue did seem to forget all the phonics I taught them. And we started back at the beginning of what the 5 vowels are and their sounds. The younger ones knew their vowels and could regurgitate their sounds as a chant but that’s on periodic review. It doesn’t feel completely solid to me.

For the last question, how would I be able to discern if they aren’t hearing the sound correctly?

[Matryoshka]

1 hour ago, domestic_engineer said:

All my kids are past the learn-to-read stage, but many of them still often confuse the terminology of phonics.  Mostly it's confusion with whether a vowel sound is short or long.  So if I say the sound /ō/ and ask if that's the long or the short sound, they will often answer "short".  This happens >50% of the time and with all the vowels.  Dyslexia is present for at least 1 of the kids.  

So, how do I clear up this confusion?  Just gently correcting them during spelling and as the occasion arises isn't working.  Any ideas on how to make this association stick?  Bonus points if you have an idea that is not drill-n-kill.

The short/long terminology in English is fake news, lol.  Most of the 'long' vowels in English (all of them but 'long E') are actually diphthongs.  Which I think native speakers only find out if they learn to sing in chorus and the choral director will constantly admonish everyone to hold the first vowel sound in the diphthong and only get to the second one at the end of the phrase.  

I taught my kids to read using Reading Reflex aka Phono-graphix, which while completely phonetically based does away with all of the traditional 'Phonics' rules (that only apply some fraction of the time), and nonsensical terms like 'long/short' vowels and 'silent' letters.  It was originally designed as a remedial program, though it is I think even more effective when you don't have to un-learn all that stuff.   The book explaining it is on Amazon for just $16.  Best homeschool money I ever spent.

[forty-two]

29 minutes ago, domestic_engineer said:

For the last question, how would I be able to discern if they aren’t hearing the sound correctly?

First step would be to have them repeat it back to you.  If that's correct, you could ask them to give a word that uses that sound (if that's a task they could do - my kids all had problems with phonemic processing and probably couldn't have done that for a while), or to ID a written word from a list that uses that sound.

If it's looking like they might be having problems hearing certain sounds, the way that Barton does it in their student screening is to use colored squares (three sets of three different colors, for nine squares total) and give three sounds, where the goal for the student is to 1) repeat the sounds, 2) represent them with colored squares (same color for same sounds, different colors for different sounds), and 3) touch each square and say the sound.  (It's Task 3 from the screening - my kids all failed it so hard.)  Sometimes all three sounds are the same, sometimes two are the same and one different (if you are only doing a quickie check, I'd use this set-up - it's like the triangle testing used for blind taste tests), and sometimes all three are different.  The screening uses phonemes that are easily mistaken for each other, but you could set up contrasts with long/short or with similar-sounding vowels or whatever.  The idea is that you are trying to bring in a visual cue to help determine what's going on.

Edited May 26, 2023 by forty-two

[Jean in Newcastle]

We just said that the long vowel sounds “said their own name “. 

[Tree Frog]

In our classroom, we use Secret Stories. It's not really a phonics program per se, but gives little stories about each letter. For the bowls specifically, there are several stories for the different sounds. The stories are what my students remember as to help them decode words. We use this in a public school, but they also offer items for homeschooling. 

[Frances]

On 5/26/2023 at 8:15 AM, Matryoshka said:

The short/long terminology in English is fake news, lol.  Most of the 'long' vowels in English (all of them but 'long E') are actually diphthongs.  Which I think native speakers only find out if they learn to sing in chorus and the choral director will constantly admonish everyone to hold the first vowel sound in the diphthong and only get to the second one at the end of the phrase.  

I taught my kids to read using Reading Reflex aka Phono-graphix, which while completely phonetically based does away with all of the traditional 'Phonics' rules (that only apply some fraction of the time), and nonsensical terms like 'long/short' vowels and 'silent' letters.  It was originally designed as a remedial program, though it is I think even more effective when you don't have to un-learn all that stuff.   The book explaining it is on Amazon for just $16.  Best homeschool money I ever spent.

I used the same program and loved it! It doesn’t teach children that letters say sounds because they don’t. Letters don’t talk.

[Frances]

On 5/26/2023 at 8:08 AM, domestic_engineer said:

Thanks, 42, for the thoughtful reply. It’s helpful!  And this question is such an insightful question!  Thanks for asking it  

my eldest with this issue did seem to forget all the phonics I taught them. And we started back at the beginning of what the 5 vowels are and their sounds. The younger ones knew their vowels and could regurgitate their sounds as a chant but that’s on periodic review. It doesn’t feel completely solid to me.

For the last question, how would I be able to discern if they aren’t hearing the sound correctly?

Reading Reflex has a test at the beginning to see if a child has issues with hearing the sounds correctly. So that parents will know if additional resources are needed.

[domestic_engineer]

On 5/28/2023 at 12:20 AM, Frances said:

I used the same program and loved it! It doesn’t teach children that letters say sounds because they don’t. Letters don’t talk.

So what’s the terminology it uses?  “When you see ___, then you say /____/.” ???

[Matryoshka]

25 minutes ago, domestic_engineer said:

So what’s the terminology it uses?  “When you see ___, then you say /____/.” ???

This 'sound picture' (RR's term for a grapheme - a letter OR combination of letters that represent one sound - such as a, a_e, ea, eigh, all of which can represent the same sound) represents X sound. Although one sound can be represented by more than one sound picture,  and one sound picture can represent more than one sound.  Because... English!

 

[forty-two]

8 minutes ago, domestic_engineer said:

So what’s the terminology it uses?  “When you see ___, then you say /____/.” ???

Per this website's description, instead of letters/graphemes having sounds, they go the other way: sounds have spellings.  AKA, instead of "the letter 'a' makes the sound /a/ as in apple or /A/ as in apron", it would be "the *sound* is /ch/, and it can be represented by "ch" or "tch"." 

That's actually how I taught my kids, although I used a different program.  (I used Dekodiphukan (decode if you can), an old innovative program developed for schools in the 70-80s, that was scanned and distributed free online, along with a set of free iOS apps, after being discontinued; it uses sound pictures to teach the 44 sounds in English, and teaches blending and spelling first with the sound pictures (such as a buzzing bee for /z/) and then with phonograms.)

[Clarita]

My kids are still in the learn to read stage, but we've had a lot of luck doing things like word sorts. So we might start with making sure they can hear the sound so I would do pictures and tell them to sort based on sound they hear. I would tell them the category with a picture of a thing that has that sound say that clearly and emphasizing the sound we are listening for. Then I put out the pictures for them to sort and they have to say the word before sorting. If they really struggle I give them one picture at a time (so we have time to talk about it and so that we can go through less words).

Also having them repeat it back while I'm in phonics/spelling mode really helps me hear our weird pronunciation quirks. Recently I discovered as a Californian we say /ch/ when the words start with "tr" like ch-r-i-ck instead of t-r-i-ck.  

[Ellie]

On 5/26/2023 at 8:44 AM, domestic_engineer said:

All my kids are past the learn-to-read stage, but many of them still often confuse the terminology of phonics.  Mostly it's confusion with whether a vowel sound is short or long.  So if I say the sound /ō/ and ask if that's the long or the short sound, they will often answer "short".  This happens >50% of the time and with all the vowels.  Dyslexia is present for at least 1 of the kids.  

So, how do I clear up this confusion?  Just gently correcting them during spelling and as the occasion arises isn't working.  Any ideas on how to make this association stick?  Bonus points if you have an idea that is not drill-n-kill.

In what context are you using those terms? Is it really necessary? I rarely use them with either of my children. Of course, younger I taught younger dd to read and spell wit Spalding, which doesn't use that terminology at all.

[domestic_engineer]

8 hours ago, Ellie said:

In what context are you using those terms? Is it really necessary? I rarely use them with either of my children. Of course, younger I taught younger dd to read and spell wit Spalding, which doesn't use that terminology at all.

One example that pops into my mind would be if the student is decoding a multisyllabic word.  If we first chop it into syllables, then identify the syllable to be an open syllable, then the vowel needs to "say its long sound".  

Or even just differentiating between "diner" and "dinner".  We might do the same conversation as above, or I might say that "dinner" has the extra "n" to protect the short sound of the "i"

[forty-two]

1 hour ago, domestic_engineer said:

One example that pops into my mind would be if the student is decoding a multisyllabic word.  If we first chop it into syllables, then identify the syllable to be an open syllable, then the vowel needs to "say its long sound".  

Or even just differentiating between "diner" and "dinner".  We might do the same conversation as above, or I might say that "dinner" has the extra "n" to protect the short sound of the "i"

If you wanted an alternative, I often just go with first sound (for the short sound) and second sound (for the long sound), where the "order" of sounds is based on the frequency - so first sound is most used, second sound is second-most used, etc.  I used The ABCs and All Their Tricks to modify the basic WRTR/OG phonograms (for maximum accuracy), but obviously you can just use the unmodified set for simplicity (the changes were mostly in the order of the less frequently used sounds anyway).  Rewards does something similar, just restricted to the two most common sounds for each phonogram, with a lot of "try the first sound first, and if it doesnt make a word that fits, try the second sound" (though they use sound/name for the single vowels, instead of first/second sound).

[Gil]

On 5/26/2023 at 9:44 AM, domestic_engineer said:

All my kids are past the learn-to-read stage, but many of them still often confuse the terminology of phonics.  Mostly it's confusion with whether a vowel sound is short or long.  So if I say the sound /ō/ and ask if that's the long or the short sound, they will often answer "short".  This happens >50% of the time and with all the vowels.  Dyslexia is present for at least 1 of the kids.  

So, how do I clear up this confusion?  Just gently correcting them during spelling and as the occasion arises isn't working.  Any ideas on how to make this association stick?  Bonus points if you have an idea that is not drill-n-kill.

Sorry, but this honestly sounds like something that can be corrected with a short period of direct teaching, explicit practice just to pound it into their heads. Followed by a couple of weeks of daily practice with immediate feedback.

It kinda sounds like something that they never truly learned the names for correctly.

 

I taught The Boys to read  and spell phonetically (and they used Spalding for spelling in the early days) but I still have to look up "hard vs soft" consonants because its not something I ever had to truly learn. We just read the words.

Due to teaching younger son how to spell intensively (he was a struggling speller), I mastered long-vs-short vowels but there's a ton of phonics terminology that I don't know because I never had to know.

[Jean in Newcastle]

I’m in camp “the only people who really need to learn phonetic terminology beyond the basics are teachers and linguists “. I have zero problem telling my students (tutoring students included) that a “long sound is when the letter says it’s own name “ because children aren’t stupid. They know that it’s a mnemonic device that is based on a word picture and that recognizing that the letter we identify as “A” makes the “ay” sound (or however you want to phonetically show it) in certain situations like cvcE.  The point is to help kids to read and spell. 

[Ellie]

15 hours ago, domestic_engineer said:

One example that pops into my mind would be if the student is decoding a multisyllabic word.  If we first chop it into syllables, then identify the syllable to be an open syllable, then the vowel needs to "say its long sound".  

Or even just differentiating between "diner" and "dinner".  We might do the same conversation as above, or I might say that "dinner" has the extra "n" to protect the short sound of the "i"

When are you providing this information?

As a Spalding user, we said first sound, second sound, and so on. I didn't teacher open syllables; I'm still not sure what those are.

Not helpful, I know; I'm just trying to understand context. 🙂

[Clarita]

1 hour ago, Ellie said:

I didn't teacher open syllables; I'm still not sure what those are.

Open syllables are when the syllable ends in a vowel (or vowel digraph) then you would say the "long" sound or the name of the letter. Closed syllable is when the syllable ends in a consonant then you would say the "short" sound.

[domestic_engineer]

6 hours ago, Ellie said:

When are you providing this information?

; I'm just trying to understand context. 🙂

Context 1:  decoding words  if the word is “diner”, our syllable division rules would have us separate the word as di-ner  The first syllable would be an open syllable because there’s nothing after the vowel “I”  thus an open syllable means the “i” will say it’s *long* sound /ī/.  If the word were “dinner” then the syllables would be din-ner.  Now the first syllable is a closed syllable and the “i” says it’s short sound.

context 2:  spelling. I doubt many people use this to help them spell, but when there’s a misspelling, and you have the kid read what they wrote, then a conversation similar to the above happens. 
 

[domestic_engineer]

I appreciate everyone’s opinions. 
 

I understand that this bit of information isn’t necessary for entering college or sustaining life. But it does come up frequently in our present day schoolwork. We typically just correct as we go, and I assume/hope that it will eventually work itself out. But I asked the question to see if there was a magic bullet solution, or something more memorable than what I’m doing, or something that I had missed teaching along the way as I’m losing hope that it will iron itself out. 

[Tanager]

What about having the kids come up with what would work for them to remember it. My daughter likes to put things into a melody or a rhyme to remember them. Though we also used to say long vowels say their name constantly. As it’s pretty “straightforward”. I memorized that as it has a “straight” line above it. (I like visual hints.) Other than that I wonder if something multi-sensory would help? LOE that i used with my youngest had games, like jump if the word I say has a long vowel sound... its young, but his sister who was 5 years older loved to jump in to do the games with him, probably because it was more fun then her school work... so maybe a version of slapjack using words where you slap the ones with a long vowel sound and you have to read it correctly and say why it’s saying it’s long sound to get it. Then switch it up with short vowel sounds as the slapjack. (Maybe start with marked long and short vowels so they see the line/breve if the first way is too hard.)

[goldenecho]

I hate the short/long terminology.  I'm a reading tutor now, and I only use it if I know they are using it in school.  I use "common sound" and "name sound."   Common sound is the sound it usually makes, and the other sound is the same as it's name.  Makes more sense to me and they understand it too.  

When I have needed to use it, I make up a little guide that shows examples of words with short and long sound and I write it so they vowels in one look short and in the other look tall.  

I don't worry if kids don't know terminology though (well, I do try to get them to understand noun and verb and adjective...cause those come in handy later when working on writing).   But short sound, long sound, schwa, digraph, blend...I may use that terminology to explain things initially, but if they can read and don't remember that, I don't care. 

 

 

 

Edited June 14, 2023 by goldenecho

[Nm.]

Videos.  Tgtb has a video on it. you tube has some. Lalilo (assign only those lessons needed).  Helped it stick for mine.  A colorful worksheet for sorting long/short words/syllables?  App- syllable swipe (I had them say the syllables aloud to me too).  Magic bullet for me is usually something screen based since they pay more attention/ it’s out of the ordinary.

Edited June 14, 2023 by Nm.