Understanding Vowels

The Sound City Reading program teaches the vowels and vowel patterns one at a time so that students can become very familiar with one pattern before going on to the next. Patterns that are similar are taught one after the other, so that students can see the similarities between them.

Students practice saying the vowel sounds they have learned from sound charts and flashcards daily. They also write vowel patterns they have learned, given the sounds. When learning a new pattern, students spell and read words with the pattern. This step by step process makes learning the vowels much easier.

The vowels in the English language are a, e, i, o, and u. In some words the letter y acts as vowel.
English has incorporated many words from other languages. This has brought in a variety of vowel patterns. It is why there are so many patterns to learn.
Vowel sounds are different from consonant sounds. You always pronounce a vowel sound with your mouth open. You adjust the shape of your mouth to create the vowel sounds.
Many of the vowel sounds can be shown with more than one pattern. Example: saw, Paul.
In some cases, a single pattern can show different sounds in different words. Example: eat, head, steak.
Each vowel has two main sounds, the short sound and the long sound. These terms do not mean that the letters themselves are shorter or longer, and it does not mean that the sounds are shorter or longer. They are just the common terms used to indicate the two different sounds.
The long vowel sound is the same as the name of the vowel.
On some of the vowel charts, the sounds for the vowels and vowel patterns are shown using sound pictures from A Sound Story About Audrey And Brad. These charts should be used first with the students.
Some of the vowel charts have key words and pictures. You can hear each vowel or vowel pattern by saying the key words. Being able to pick out the sound from a key word is more difficult. These charts should only be used after students have studied the charts with sound pictures for a period of time.
Vowel patterns are grouped with other similar patterns when they are taught. For example, all of the long vowel patterns are taught close together. This helps students understand the patterns and remember them more easily.
Do not be discouraged if you read about the vowel patterns and they seem complicated. There is a logic to the system and it will make more sense as you go through the program. In this program the students are taught one pattern at a time, and you will learn with them. Each pattern is taught thoroughly before going on to the next. After students practice reading and spelling words with a new pattern, they will soon be able to use the pattern without having to think about it. It will become second nature.
In some books, the vowels are printed in color. There is a specific color for each vowel sound. This helps the vowels and vowel patterns stand out in words, so that students will recognize them and be able to distinguish between consonants and vowels in words. For multi-letter vowels, students will be able to see which letters work together to show the vowel sound. Students will quickly be able to see which patterns sound the same, because the colors will be the same. They will also be able to see when vowel patterns have different sounds, because they will be printed in different colors. There are fifteen different colors used. Fourteen of these colors represent sounds. The colors for the short and long vowel sounds are related. For each vowel, the long sound is shown in a dark color, and the short vowel sound is shown in a lighter version of the same color.
To see and hear all of the vowel patterns and sounds in this program, click on VIDEO in the menu. Then click on Advanced Phonics Patterns. You will be able to see videos showing all of the vowel patterns, both beginning and advanced, and hear them pronounced. You will be able to see all of the consonant patterns as well.
Even though there are only five vowel letters, there are many different vowel sounds. You can hear each vowel sound when you pronounce the key words shown below. And you can see the vowels and their sounds on the chart below. The vowel sounds, along with the consonant sounds, are introduced in A Sound Story About Audrey And Brad. Part one of the story introduces the short vowel sounds and the long i sound. Part two introduces the rest of the vowel sounds. Click on AUDIO in the menu to hear the sound story read aloud.

What Vowel Sounds Are Taught?

Five short vowel sounds: a/ax, e/egg, i/in, o/ox, u/up (No marks are placed over short vowels in this program. This reduces confusion. Students learn to read words with short vowels first, so there is no need for a mark. In a few words, the letter y shows the short i sound.)
Five long vowel sounds: a/apron, e/begin, i/lilac, o/robot, u/music (When you say the name of these vowels, you are pronouncing the long vowel sound. When they are introduced, they are shown with a straight line above them. This helps students distinguish long vowels from short vowels. The line is called a macron. The letter y sometimes shows the long i or the long e sound.)
Three dotted vowel sounds: a/all, o/to, u/bush (Two dots are placed above these vowels when they are introduced in the teaching materials. The symbol is a German umlaut, which means "not the usual sound.") Two more dotted vowels, e/ballet and i/pizza, steal the long a and long i sounds. Note: In books with color-coded vowels, the o/to sound is printed in the same color as the long u sound, dark blue, because they are almost the same sound.
Two diphthongs: oi/coin and oy/boy, ou/ouch and ow/cow (The oi and oy patterns have exactly the same sound. Likewise, the ou and ow patterns have the same sound. When you pronounce a diphthong, you change the position of your mouth as you say the sound.) In this program these patterns and a few others are called "Odd O" patterns, because they don't represent the sound that you would expect. The sounds for Odd O patterns must be memorized.
Vowels followed by the letter r make up a special category, called R-controlled vowels. In many words, the R-controlled vowel is not pronounced at all, as in er/her, i/bird, and ur/turtle. These vowel patterns are printed with the color gray.

Vowels followed by the letter r make up a special category, called R-controlled vowels. The letter r affects the sound of the vowel. In the ar/car pattern, the letter a has the short o sound, so these patterns are printed with the short o color, light orange. In the or/horse pattern, the vowel o has the long o sound, so these patterns are printed with the long o color, dark orange. In many words, the R-controlled vowel is not pronounced at all, as in er/her, i/bird, and ur/turtle. These vowel patterns are printed with the color gray.

Closed And Open Syllables - Understanding When To Use Short And Long Vowel Sounds

Syllables are rhythmic units in words. Each syllable contains a vowel sound. Most syllables also contain consonant sounds.

When you see a word or syllable that has a single vowel followed by one or more consonants, use the short vowel sound. This is called a closed syllable. Examples: up, ill, can, slot, rest, rob-in, rab-bit, fan-tas-tic.
When you see a word or syllable that has a single vowel at the end of the syllable, use the long vowel sound. This is called an open syllable. Examples: go, no, he, she, we, flu. Examples with the first syllable open: ra-ven, be-gin, li-lac, ro-bot, mu-sic. Examples with the second syllable open: hip-po, ban-jo, men-u, kud-zu.

Accented And Unaccented Syllables

In many words, one syllable is pronounced more forcefully than the other syllables. This type of syllable is called an accented syllable. In accented syllables, the vowel sound is usually pronounced as you would expect. Examples: pi-lot, cab-in, com-pare, re-port.

In some words, one of the syllables is not pronounced as forcefully as the other syllables. This type of syllable is called an unaccented syllable. In unaccented syllables, the vowel is hardly pronounced at all. When you read an unaccented syllable, you go from the consonant before the vowel to the consonant after the vowel, sliding past the vowel without pronouncing it. In practice, the skipped vowel sound like a very slight "uh" or "i" sound. This is called the schwa sound. Examples: pi-lot, cab-in, com-pare, en-ve-lope. In this program, a curved arrow is placed under a vowel if it has the schwa sound. It points from one consonant to the next, skipping the vowel.

There Are Many Ways To Show Long Vowel Sounds

Long vowel sounds can be shown in four different ways.

A single vowel is at the end of a syllable.
Two vowels work together to show one long vowel sound. Pronounce the long sound for the first vowel. Do not pronounce the second vowel. We say, "When two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking."
Two vowels work together to show one long vowel sound, but they are separated by a consonant. We call this a "split vowel" pattern. The second vowel is always the letter e. Pronounce the long sound for the first vowel, Do not pronounce the second vowel. Even though the vowels are separated, we still say, "When two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking." When teaching these patterns, show students how to draw a bracket below the pattern, starting at the first vowel and ending at the second vowel, to draw attention to the fact that the vowels work together.
A vowel is followed by one or more consonants. We call this a "follow the leader" pattern. The vowel gets to say its name because it goes first. (These patterns must be memorized, because in most words a single vowel followed by one or more consonants represents its short vowel sound: last, went, wisp, soft, jump.)

You have seen that single vowels at the end of a syllable show the long vowel sound. There are many two-letter patterns that can also show long vowel sounds. The letters in these patterns work together to represent just one sound. With a few exceptions, these vowel pairs can appear anyplace in words. For example, the ee pattern appears at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end of these words: eel, seed, bee. Notice that in these patterns the first vowel "says its name" (its long vowel sound), and the second vowel is not pronounced. We can say that the "first one does the talking (says its sound), and the second one does the walking (has to be quiet)."

Long A Patterns: ai/rain, ay/play
Long E Patterns: ee/feet, ei/weird, ey/key, ea/eat
Long I Patterns: ie/pie
Long O Patterns: oa/boat, oe/toe
Long U Patterns: ue/cue

There are also five vowel pairs that are separated by a consonant. We call these "split" vowel pairs. Even though they are not right beside each other, they still represent the long vowel sound. Like the other vowel pairs, the first vowel is pronounced as the long vowel sound, and the second vowel is not pronounced. These vowels are trickier to learn because the student has to look at the first vowel and then look past the consonant to see the second vowel.

Long A: a_e/safe
Long E: e_e/these
Long I: i_e/pine
Long O: o_e/home
Long U: u_e/cube

Some long vowel patterns are made up of a vowel followed by two consonants.

Long I: igh/night, ind/find, ild/child
Long O: old/gold, olt/bolt, oll/troll, olk/yolk

Dotted Vowel Sounds

In this program, vowel sounds that are neither long nor short are classified as dotted vowel sounds. Sometimes these sounds are represent by single vowels, sometimes they are represented by vowel pairs, and sometimes they are represented by vowel-consonant combinations.

Dotted vowels are shown with two dots above them. The two dots are called an umlaut. It means "not the usual sound."

Sometimes single vowels have dotted sounds. Examples: bush, to, pizza.
Sometimes dotted vowel sounds are shown by a vowel-vowel combination. Examples: Paul, veil, moon, book.
Sometimes dotted vowel sounds are part of vowel-consonant combinations. Examples: ball, wasp, sleigh, could.

You can hear the sounds for the dotted vowels in these words.

Dotted A: a/all
Dotted E: e/ballet (Sounds like the long a sound.)
Dotted I: i/pizza (Sounds like the long e sound.)
Dotted O: o/to
Dotted U: u/bush

These are the patterns that have dotted vowel sounds.

R-Controlled Vowel Sounds

If the letter r follows a vowel, it usually affects its sound. This type of pattern is called an R-controlled vowel pattern. It is also know as a "Bossy R" pattern. We say that the letter R likes to be the boss and tell the vowel which sound to use. The vowel sound in an R-controlled pattern may be long or short, or the vowel may not be pronounced all. Some of the r-controlled patterns can be pronounced in more than one way. In some cases the position of the pattern in the word affects how it is pronounced.

Bossy R with A: ar/car, ar/dollar, ar/carrot
Bossy R with E: er/her, er/heron
Bossy R with I: ir/bird
Bossy R with O: or/horse, or/tractor, or/sorry
Bossy R with U: ur/turtle

There are three other R-Controlled patterns.

wor/worm
ear/early
our/journal

The R-Controlled vowels are not all taught at the same time. The or/horse pattern is taught in Book 1. The rest of the most common patterns are taught in Book 5. The remaining patterns are taught in Book 6.

Umbrella Sounds

There are six different patterns in which a vowel can show the short u sound for no apparent reason. In this program, these patterns are called "umbrella" vowels. In the student books, an umbrella is placed above each pattern when it is introduced to remind students to say the short u sound (heard at the beginning of the word umbrella) for that pattern. Read "A Story About The Umbrella Vowels" to the students as a simple way to explain this concept.

a/was - was, what, a
a_/across - across, away, around, alone
_a/panda - panda, villa, extra, umbrella
o/son - son, won, from, front, money, wonder
o_e/love - love, some, come, none, love, dove
ou/country - country, southern, double, trouble, young

Sounds For Y

The letter y is sometimes used as a consonant and sometimes used as a vowel.

y/yo-yo - Y is used as a consonant: yo-yo, yes, year, you
y/happy - Y is used as a vowel when it is at the end of the last syllable in a multisyllable word. It represents the long e sound: hap-py, fun-ny, po-ny, fam-i-ly.
y/my - Y is used as a vowel when it is the only vowel in a one-syllable word and it appears at the end of the word. It represents the long i sound: my, by, try, sky.
The ye and y_e patterns show the long i sound.
y/gymnastics - Y sometimes represents the short i sound in words: gym, myth, symbol, bicycle. This pattern is shown on the "Shady Short Vowel" chart.

Shady Short Vowels

There are three short vowel patterns that do not follow the rules. In this program we call them "shady" short vowels. The word "shady" tells us that these vowels are trying to trick us. The chart for these patterns is shown below.

The ea/head pattern has the short e sound instead of the long e sound in some words. It is printed in the same light green color as short e.
In the a/father pattern the a is pronounced like a short o sound. It is printed in the same light orange color as short o.
In the y/gymnastics pattern the y is pronounced like short i. It is printed in the same light violet color as short i.

Silent E

In several situations, the letter e is not pronounced at all. We can say it is a "silent e." When teaching these patterns, place a small x above the e to remind students that it is not pronounced.

Some multi-syllable words end with a "silent e" syllable: ap-ple, bot-tle, sim-ple. All syllables must have at least one vowel, so the letter e is included at the end of the second syllable. However, it is not pronounced.
The letter v is not used at the end of English words. The letter pattern _ve is used to show the /v/ sound at the end of words: give, have, carve, serve. The e in this pattern is not pronounced.
The _se and _ze patterns are used to show the /s/ or /z/ sound at the end of some words. They are used after a two-letter vowel pattern: mouse, horse, noise, moose, freeze, snooze, maize. The e at the end of the words is not pronounced. The _se pattern can have the /s/ or /z/ sound. The _ze pattern has the /z/ sound.
The _ce pattern is sometimes used at the end of words to show the /s/ sound: fence, chance, force, choice, fleece. The e at the end is not pronounced.
The _ge pattern is sometimes used at the end of words to show the /j/ sound: change, fringe, gorge, bulge. The e at the end is not pronounced.
In "Vowel-Consonant-E" patterns, two vowels work together to show a single sound, but the vowels are separated by a consonant: safe, these, pine, home, flute, cube. The first vowel is pronounced as its long vowel sound. The second vowel is always the letter e and it is not pronounced.

Odd O Patterns

These patterns all begin with the letter o. Most of them do not show the sound you would expect. The sounds for these patterns must be memorized. Some of these patterns can represent more than one sound.

R-Controlled Vowels (Bossy R Patterns)

When the letter r follows a vowel, it affects its sound. The vowel and the letter r are pronounced as a unit. When you see an r-controlled vowel, you can't pronounce the vowel in the expected way. You have to learn the sound for each pattern individually. In some bossy r patterns, you only hear the /r/ sound; you don't hear the vowel at all. In other patterns the vowel is heard but it may not be the sound you would expect.

Y As A Vowel

The letter y acts as a vowel in some words. It can represent three different vowel sounds.

y = long i sound my, by, try, sky, python, myself At the end of a one syllable word or the end of a first syllable
y = long e sound happy, funny, empty, family At the end of a multi-syllable word
y = short i sound gymnastics, lynx, cylinder, pyramid In the middle of a syllable

The patterns ye and y_e also represent vowel sounds.

ye = long i sound rye, dye, lye, bye
y_e = long i sound type, style, rhyme

Both Y And W Can Be Used As Part Of A Vowel Pattern

The consonants y and w can serve as the second vowel in a vowel team, as in oy/boy, ay/play, ow/cow, and aw/saw.