Introduction to phonetics

In our Montessori classroom children learn the phonetic sounds of the letters before they learn the alphabetical names in a sequence. The phonetic sounds are given first because these are the sounds they hear in words that they speak or listen to in their everyday life.

We have already introduced phonetic sounds of the vowels a, e, i, o, u to our children & request parents to practice the same at home. You can play I-spy games with them by placing different objects in front of the child, then saying “I spy something with my eye, something that begins with ‘a’ (Here, instead of saying the alphabet ‘a’, make the sound of ‘a’ as explained below)”.

How to make the sounds?
a for apple - Widen your jaws, then lift your tongue & pull it back while using your voice
e for elf - Let tongue push against lower teeth, open mouth & use your voice
i for igloo - Open mouth slightly, let tongue rest on sides of upper teeth & use your voice
o for ostrich - Open mouth, let tongue lay on the floor of mouth & use your voice
u for umpire - Let tongue lay on floor of mouth with tip against lower teeth, open mouth & use your voice

You can listen to the sounds here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-ns8tUIWP0

Here’s a brief word list to get you started –
a as in apple, album, ant, act, axe, acorn, acrobat, alligator, ambulance etc.
e as in elephant, elf, egg, elbow etc.
i as in igloo, ink, inkpot, injection, instruction
o as in ostrich, old, ox, open etc.
u as in umbrella, umpire, under etc.

Once children are familiar with these sounds at the beginning of the word, you can
introduce words which have the sound in the middle of the word e.g. fan, stand, bag, cat etc.