Hello friends.
I think each of you - whether you are a parent or a teacher - understands that the rules of reading in English for children differ from the rules for adults, but not in content, but in volume and presentation of the material.
Preschoolers or children school age who are just starting to learn English, you need to give such information in very portions, accompanying all this with vivid pictures, video and audio materials. Of course, you should immediately give memorable examples and, if possible, reinforce everything with exercises. Then this topic will be easy and even interesting for a young student.
On this page you will find very colorful and useful tables with the main vowels of the English language. ().
In the first table you can see the basic vowels and how to read them.
In the second table - the most common combinations of vowels in words and also how to read them.
And in the third and fourth - examples of sentences with words containing the mentioned letters and combinations.
How to work with them?
- To begin with, explain to the child that each vowel letter in English can be read differently and using the 1st table, look at the examples and read them together (you can also study if it is not clear to the child).
- Then talk about the fact that in English there are vowels that often stand next to each other, and in this case they will sound together in their own way. On the examples from the 2nd table, you will see this and read it together.
- In the third and fourth tables, you and your child can read whole sentences, each of which has several words with the same vowel sounds (they are underlined). Before each sentence example, a transcription icon with the sound being practiced is highlighted in red. Read it first, and then the entire sentence.
To make it easier for you, I recorded audio for these materials. Listen and practice.
Letters and sounds
Commentary on table 1: If you notice, every vowel in the English language can be read in two ways: either as we read it in the alphabet, or in a different way. So, usually in alphabetical order, letters "a, e, i, o, u" read in words that end with a letter "e" or consisting of more than one syllable . But in short monosyllabic words ending in a consonant, they are read differently. This must be remembered! Reading a letter "y" you also need to remember in two ways - but here the logic is different - in short words, where it is in last place, we read it alphabetically (to be precise, almost alphabetically), and in long ones - in a different way.
Regularly reread with your children examples of short monosyllabic and longer English words with vowels - then their reading rules will be “recorded” in the child’s memory, and subsequently he will be able to find out by analogy the way in which the letter will be read. You will find a lot of similar practice in my .
Sentence examples
I hope you liked it!
By the way, I wrote about the important rules for teaching a child to read correctly in English - there you will also find some practice with voiced material.
How to learn to read in English (M. Kaufman) This is a very interesting book for kids. What is very remarkable, in parallel with learning to read, there is an acquaintance with the English-speaking culture. This awakens the interest and curiosity of the child in the language ... And interest, as you know, is already 50% of success! If not more...
If you have any questions, write and ask them in the comments - I will be happy to help.
In view of the fact that the study of English by children begins already in primary schools and kindergartens, it is worth giving practical examples to help children learn the correct pronunciation. It is worth saying that all exercises can be divided into listening exercises(based on understanding the pronunciation of the speaker and imitating him: teacher's speech, audio recordings) and playback exercises(sounds, syllables, words, phrases, sentences, tongue twisters, rhymes, short poems are used here).
Consider examples of articulation English sounds that will be interesting for the child to perform. After completing a set of training exercises, children acquire articulation skills and subsequently work on phonetics is facilitated.
Exercise for pronunciation of sounds [p], [t], [k]:
Put a couple of pieces of paper on your palm, bring your palm to your lips (at a distance of 5 cm) and pronounce [p] in the words "pen", "ten", "keik" with a breath. When exhaling these sounds, pieces of paper should fly off the palm of your hand. To compare aspiration in English and its absence in Russian for words with sounds [p], [t], [k], let the child first pronounce the words "desk", "tempo", "case" in Russian, and then, as it were, -English (these words are only the first sounds in English). This will show him the obvious difference in pronunciation. (Of course, this pronounced aspiration does not apply to all cases of pronunciation of the sounds [p], [t], [k]).
Zuki [t][d]:
Let the child pronounce these sounds at the beginning of the words tent, time, take, tall, teach, dance, dark, day, deal, dinner; in the middle and at the end of words: at, hat, add, factory; got, active, and, bad, bed, child, cut, flat, good.
Sound discrimination exercises (long and short) - [I]
How fast are the clocks? Like this: . How are they lagging behind? Like this: . Or the difference in pronunciation in owls it and eat. Suggest a little game: "If I say the word it - clap your hands once, and if eat, clap 3 times."
Sound [w]:
Let the child imagine a crying baby and try to say "wah-wah".
Sound [r]:
The dog growls when he drinks water r - r - dr - drink.
Sounds [z] and [p]:
Mosquitoes fly into the window and buzz, or a bee flies and buzzes like this: [p - p - p].
Sound [b]:
Throw pebbles into the river with your child (or imitate) and have him repeat the sound [b]. Always pay attention to how easy everything is to learn and how easy it is for him to succeed.
Sound recognition (for example, [t]):
"Clap your hands when you hear a word that has the sound [t]" and list different words: bed, TVset, jet, book, tomatoes. Or "Count how many times the sound [z] occurs in the sentence":
Tom is not so brave as his brother.
Sound [g]:
Play geese, let the baby imagine how the geese screamed.
Sound [h]:
Clean grandma's glasses, have the child blow on them, pronouncing the sound [h]. If the sound is correct, then the windows should fog up. At the same time, try to compare "cold", "hut", "halvah" with Russians. Such methods of mastering English sounds on Russian-language material are very effective. For example, [d] - home, dasha, Dяdya, [r]: fish, cancer, joyful.
Sound [m]:
Let the baby pronounce [m] as if he saw some kind of treat.
Sound [s]:
Blow air out of the balloon.
Listening Orientation:
Let the child repeat from each pair of words the one that was spoken.
play-played, stop-stopped
Rate-rated, skim-skimmed
Read the rhymes and end them with suitable words that you previously discussed with the child.
For instance:
Little Rat, Little Rat, give me your... (hat).
Dear Cat, Dear Cat, where is your ...(bed).
Poor Mike, Poor Mike lost his.. (bike).
Dirty Tad, Dirty Tad has no ...(flat).
Tad is not crazy, he is just ...(lazy).
A snake says ...(sh-sh-sh).
A bug sings ...(dzi:-dzi:).
You can come up with short poems with a rhyme of one syllable:
Sam is in a tram.
Mike is on his bike.
Now our town is brown.
Invent similar rhymes yourself or remove the endings from the finished ones. Correct your child's phonetic mistakes by repeating a line from a rhyme with the correct pronunciation. So the correction will not be so obvious.
You can also make up stories with sounds yourself and learn pronunciation from them.
Learning the letters and sounds of the English language, learning to read Russian children is not so easy, because English has its own peculiarities and complexities of phonetics. Let's turn all these difficulties into an entertaining game, or to be more precise, into 8 games.
Teaching children in China and Russia
So we said that it is difficult for Russian children to learn letters and sounds, but! If we compare with Chinese children ... The latter are much more difficult! After all, they learned their Chinese characters, memorized them as a whole picture, and I see how many Chinese children do not understand how to read English ... they just memorize the words TOTALLY!!! Like a picture. That is, if the word is unfamiliar, they do not understand how to read it, but, we must give them their due - they have an excellent memory and diligence!
Exercises in a playful way
In we have already talked about games for children to memorize words. Today we will tell you how we learn the letters and sounds of the English language in the classroom:
Thumb up - thumb down
It's simple, I raise my thumb up - we pronounce the letters in order (“A, B, C, D, E, F ...”), point my finger horizontally - we pronounce the same letter (“F, F, F, F .... ""), thumbs down - in reverse order ("F, E, D, C, B, A"). And of course, as expected, we accelerate and change the direction of the finger as unexpectedly as possible.
Make a word from letters
We distribute cards with letters to the children. Then the teacher says a word (simple, already familiar to the children), and they line up in a certain order to make a word;
children-letters
Children are divided into groups, the teacher gives each group a word that they must depict using their own bodies)) And other groups try to “read” the words from each other);
Color the letters
This is a job for the little ones. Finding pictures on the internet beautiful letters and ask the children to color each letter with a specific one. Then we cut out the letters, and the teacher distributes cards with words, only one letter is missing in each word. Children determine where which letter needs to be glued according to the corresponding color. For example, the letter "A" had to be colored red, and in the card the word C…T (with the image of a cat) was also red. Then we insert the letter, glue it and pronounce it together;
Unscramble
The letters in the words are mixed up, you need to rearrange them in the correct order;
What does it look like?
When studying each letter, we not only write it down many times, but also draw what this letter looks like! "A", for example, looks like a swing, so they draw this letter in the form of a swing;
Bingo
A game for all occasions and times! We draw a grid of 9 squares, enter any letters (or sounds) there, listen to the teacher, if there is such a letter, we cross it out. The winner is the one who shouted “Bingooo!!!”, and the one who crossed out the last letter shouted like that));
Raise your sound
Children are given cards with sounds, the teacher pronounces the words, if the spoken word has a sound on the card, then the student must raise his card and say the sound.
There are quite a lot of games for learning English letters and sounds, we tried to outline some of them, only the most beloved ones.
You may also be interested in:
Teaching preschoolers (and children in grades 1-2) to read is a topic that raises so many questions that I decided not to write about it in about preschoolers, but to separate it into a separate article. So, today about the most pressing issues of teaching reading in English.
Very often, parents, remembering how they once learned the language, ask this, almost classic, question:
But what about transcription?
First, transcription does not teach reading.. And I never taught. Those who have studied transcription, confess: when reading a text in English, do you imagine it written in transcription marks? Of course not. You don't need transcription to read.
Transcription helps you learn how to pronounce an unfamiliar word. Previously, almost the only way to find out when there was no teacher nearby was a paper dictionary. Therefore, when studying the rules of reading (in the fifth grade, by the way), they immediately took transcription marks so that children could use the dictionary at home. I repeat, not for reading, for using a dictionary! But now we have a lot of various resources at our disposal. There is also a textbook with an audio application, where new words, texts, songs, etc. are voiced; there is a computer, smartphone or tablet with voiced dictionaries, and in extreme cases, almost any online dictionary provides the opportunity to listen to a new word. Children look into the paper dictionary less and less. And that's okay. This is progress.
Secondly, transcription will only confuse a small child. It can be given starting in early adolescence. In the same fifth grade, it is quite possible, although now it is no longer necessary. And imagine, a preschooler or a first grader, just recently learned the Russian alphabet, is studying english alphabet- these are already two sign systems that he must keep in mind. And here some introduce a third sign system, which is needed to decipher the second. Does it really sound difficult? Now imagine how difficult it is for a child. No, a child with a good memory, of course, will master this. But why? Everything has its time.
Why is it impossible to sign words in Russian letters?
Sometimes I see that some parents and even (horror!) colleagues sign the child under the word as it is read in Russian letters. You can't do that. Never. At all.
Firstly, Russian letters cannot convey English sounds. When writing words in Russian letters, you yourself spoil the child's pronunciation. Which, by the way, is childhood formed most naturally.
Secondly, if the word is signed in Russian, what will the child do? That's right, he will read it. Do not remember how it is written in English, but read these very Russian letters. He will remember how the word sounds, but, having met this word in a new text, he most likely will not recognize it.
With preschoolers and younger students, learning to read begins with alphabet And sounds. AND leading role It is not the alphabet that plays, but the sounds. It is very easy to memorize the alphabet - it is enough to regularly turn on alphabetic songs to the child, which are on YouTube great multitude. But in order to start reading, the child must learn which letter of the alphabet makes which sound. To do this, the students and I (using card games, videos, TPR - about it) remember its sound for each letter of the alphabet and one or two words that begin with this sound. For example, when seeing the letter Bb, children immediately remember the ball - ball, and hence the sound /b/. At home, you can additionally listen to such phonics songs.
There are two ways to teach children to read. And the best effect will be if you use both methods at the same time.
Whole word method.
This method of teaching reading is offered by the authors of most children's textbooks. According to this method, new words are given as follows: picture + word. Children look in the textbook at pictures with words signed to them, listen, repeat after the announcer, play with cards. Typically, the teacher uses two sets of cards: picture cards and word cards. In special educational games with these cards, children remember which word fits which picture.
That is, the mechanism is this - the child does not parse the word into sounds, he correlates the visual image of the whole word with its sound (due to this, the method of whole words can be used in parallel with the study of the alphabet and sounds, without waiting until all the letters are learned). Then, seeing the studied word in the text, the child remembers how it sounds and can read it. This method is good because almost half of the words in English are exceptions that are not read according to the rules and there is simply no other way to learn these words how to remember.
Method of learning by phonics.
The whole word method alone is still not enough. In order for the child to read really well, it is better to reinforce the textbook with its method of whole words by learning to read according to the rules. To do this, phonics are used with kids from the age of 6 - these are aids where words are collected in groups, depending on which rule it is read. Listening and reading these groups of words, the child deduces reading patterns. For example, after listening, repeating after the speaker, and possibly beating the words cat-fat-mat-bat in games, most children themselves will be able to read the word sat and the like.
Usually, phoenixes are beautiful books with pictures, audio and sometimes a video application (of those that I like - Oxford Phonics World for preschoolers and Sounds Great for starters, both in 5 parts), there are also interactive programs (Starfall , Teach Your Monster to Read) and video courses (for example, the amazing course Hooked on Phonics). Some authors give phonics directly in the textbook, for example, there are phonics in the Family and Friends textbook, but they are stretched over several years (!) of study. In fact, one school year is enough to learn all the rules of reading for kids.
Gradually, when children learn how to put letters into words, you can begin to select simple books for 4-5-year-old carrier children, in which there is a huge picture and one small sentence on each page. In many of them, the vocabulary is simple and already 80 percent familiar to the students, but there is a sea of \u200b\u200bdelight from such books - still, read a whole book in English!
Like this, since kindergarten it is possible to teach a child to read in a fun and interesting way, without discouraging him from learning a transcription that is incomprehensible to him, and instill a love of reading.
I hope this article was useful for you. If you have questions or additions - please write in the comments. Good luck with your learning English!
Mother to child: Read the letters.
Child: Ke Oh Me Se Oh Me Oh Le soft sign Se Ke A Ya Bae Re A Wee De A
Mom: What happened?
Child: "A pot of porridge."
family bike
Is there already something to write down?
I think that few begin to teach children to read and write in Russian with the words "phenotype", "oxymoron" or "amino acid". The words “mom”, “house” and “cat” are more suitable for this. First words, which should "get" when reading and writing, should be well known, "go towards" the child, and not be an obstacle between the child and reading.
Teaching a child to read foreign language- not at all the same as teaching reading mother tongue. What should "turn out" when reading and writing is a non-native, foreign-language suspense. It is then that he will most likely study the majority foreign words through their reading 'til words should help him learn to read and write. That's why I always advise prepare the child for reading by learning a certain number of words so that they are obvious.
It should be obvious to the child not only what the word means, but also how it sounds and is correctly pronounced.
When we learn to write in our native language, we are able to pronounce and distinguish those sounds that represent letters. It is not uncommon for elementary school teachers to send their students to a speech therapist, as many reading and writing problems are due to speech therapy problems, that is, due to problems with pronunciation. I will focus on an exaggerated example. Imagine that the child pronounces the same sounds [sh] and [s]. For him, this is the same sound, so the difference between the letters Ш and С for this child will be incomprehensible and unsteady.
The ability to pronounce a sound depends not only on whether the language is heard, but also on how clearly the child recognizes sounds by ear, how clearly he generally understands that these are two different sounds.
When teaching writing in a foreign language, all these problems are multiplied tenfold. How to teach conditionally to record those sounds that the child does not own: he does not know how to pronounce and does not distinguish by ear, or even does not even suspect their existence?
Often teachers and parents try to catch two birds with one stone: to teach the sound by teaching the letter. It is very difficult for a child. He decides problem with two unknowns: unknown icon indicates an unknown sound. Add to this problems with hand placement, confusion with Russian letters that he has just learned or is just learning, confusion of lowercase and uppercase letters, and so on and so forth, and you will understand that for a child to learn letters at the same time as sounds is a difficult task. In this task, there should be not only “find”, but also “given”. Before learning to write with the letters of a foreign alphabet, you need to learn how to pronounce foreign sounds.
Reading should be preceded by a thorough preparatory stage. Of course, it can be called preparatory, if we keep in mind that our main task is to teach the child to read and write, from the point of view of language learning in general, this is one of the supporting stages.
Of course, it is good if at the time of the beginning of learning to read the child already speaks a foreign language, but this is not always from the realm of the real. Nevertheless, before you start reading and writing, you need to create the necessary base: to teach the child to articulate and recognize English sounds, so that the letters have something to mean, and to teach him a minimum of English words: so that there is something to read and what to write down.
Sounds
At the end of the preparatory stage of learning English sounds, you and your child should come to the following minimum of his skills, creating the first necessary ground for learning the language:
1. Child has an idea of how sound is produced, in other words, "what we move" to make a sound; knows how to understand what he is doing when he utters this or that sound. You can read about it in any manual you like on English pronunciation, as well as in an article published on this site.
I usually spare no time and effort to explain to the child how sounds are formed. Firstly, after these explanations, it is easier for the child to teach the pronunciation of sounds new to him and the specifics of pronouncing sounds familiar to him. And secondly, it makes it possible to correct and improve pronunciation in the future, without returning to “theoretical” explanations.
The wording and way of explaining is quite easy to find, and children usually easily and easily understand the basics of the science of articulation. When I explain, I ask questions, alternating between those that the child obviously does not know the answer to and those that the child can answer or is known to easily answer. This form of explanation usually does not tire the child and turns the lesson into a conversation, where there is room for the child to speak himself. This form of practice also allows you to control every minute whether the explanation is moving forward or it just seems to be, to see every stumble in the child's understanding and every inaccuracy in the explanation.
Questions should seem simple and obvious to the child, it is necessary to maintain the illusion of simplicity and at the same time the magic of novelty. Try to get the child to talk as much as possible, your role is to ask questions, provoke answers and summarize.
It may seem that it is much easier to explain everything to a child and not to suffer and not to be cunning with leading questions, but what the child has come to “on his own” is easier to understand and more memorable. Explanations can save time, but lead not to understanding, but to the fact that the child nods, not understanding anything.
I usually start "from Adam" and ask the child everything he knows about sounds in general.
- What sounds does he know?
- What sounds can you get without leaving the room? The child will amaze you with ingenuity, he only needs to give a tip, for example, to knock on the table. He will understand that we are talking about all sounds.
- How are sounds produced? For example, clap your hands and ask, "Why is the sound now?" “What needs to be done to get such a sound?” Discuss with him how all kinds of sounds are made.
- What sounds can be made with the mouth? Here, children usually also feel complete expanse: they smack, champ, blow, cough, wheeze, scream, portray animals ...
- How do we pronounce the sound of a kiss? How do we click? Are we whistling? Are we coughing?.. Such questions teach the child to observe the organs of speech. Do not touch the sounds of speech yet, give the child the opportunity to practice observing himself, so that later he can more successfully answer questions about the sounds with which we speak.
- What do we have in our mouth? How can we make sounds? What can we touch in the mouth with the tongue? What can we touch with our lips?
- What sounds do we make when we talk? If the child is not yet familiar with this issue at all, it will have to be discussed in detail. "One or many sounds in the word" mother "?" Slowly say the words with your child as many times as necessary to determine how many sounds they contain and what they are.
- How do we make sounds? Ask, for example, the child to explain how we pronounce sounds[m] ( we close our lips), [l] ( touch the tongue to the sky), [but] ( open your mouth), [y] ( draw out the lips).
- Can we speak without breathing? Children rarely answer this question. Ask him to say the word "yes" for a minute quickly and quickly and note the clock. After some time, the child will run out of breath, and he will need a noisy breath. Stop him on this breath, pay attention to him and ask him to say the word “yes” very quickly again, but not to allow breaths.
