Phonemes, Blending, and Segmenting Study Notes

Overview of Phonemes

• Phonemes are the distinct units of sound in a specified language that distinguish one word from another.

English Alphabet vs. Phonemes

• There are 26 letters in the English language alphabet, but there are 44 phonemes.

  • Example: The combination c h represents one phoneme with its unique sound.

• Despite having only five vowels in the alphabet, there are 19 vowel phonemes.

  • Example: The letter r is an r-controlled vowel phoneme.

Diphthongs and Vowel Phonemes

• Diphthong: The sound represented by the combination oy is classified as a diphthong and is also considered a vowel phoneme.

Phoneme Awareness in Students

• When applying phonemes to letters, students need an awareness of individual sounds.

  • Human brains are inherently wired for language comprehension; however, they do not naturally segment phonemes when speaking.

Blending vs. Segmenting Phonemes

• Blending Phonemes: Combining individual sounds to form words.

  • It is generally easier to blend phonemes than to segment them.

  • Blending supports the processes of decoding and reading.

  • **Process Examples: **

  • When students learn to read, they apply a phoneme to each letter they encounter:

    • For the word cat, they identify:

    • c, say the sound,

    • a, say the sound,

    • t, say the sound,

    • They then blend each sound to read the complete word: cat.

Continuants and Stops

• Continuants: Sounds that can be stretched without distortion.

  • All vowel phonemes are considered continuants.

  • Some examples of consonant continuants include:

  • Stretching the sound of s (as in 'ssss').

• Stops: Sounds created by momentarily closing off the airflow.

  • Stops cannot be stretched.

  • Examples of stops:

  • b, g (as in 'big'). To illustrate, when saying b it should be brief and cut off.

Instructional Approach

• When teaching phonemes, start with continuants before introducing stops:

  • Example: Use continuants e or e to teach the word me before introducing stops.

  • For stops, use the example of b, i, g to teach the word big.

Segmenting Spoken Language

• Segmenting occurs when students spell or encode words:

  • The process involves thinking of a word and separating out each sound.

  • Students assign specific letters or combinations of letters that represent each sound:

  • Example: For the sound m, assign m, and for the sound of e, assign e.

• Evaluating spelling is an effective method to determine whether students can accurately represent each phoneme, which will be discussed further.

Counting Phonemes

• Important note on counting phonemes:

  • R-controlled vowels represent one phoneme. For instance, the word far contains two phonemes, f and ar.

  • Digraphs (combinations like s h, c h, t h) each represent one phoneme:

  • Example: The word ship has three phonemes.

  • Consonant blends retain their individual sounds:

  • Example: The word crash features four distinct sounds.

  • Example: The word strap consists of five distinct sounds.