| What is a
Phoneme? |
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A Phoneme is
the smallest unit of sound. This can be made by
one or more letters
In the word cat there are three
phonemes c a t .
In the word paint there are four
phonemes p ai n t you will notice
that ai is one phoneme but has two letters.
Take care
with the phonemes. For example with ‘b’
for bat the ‘b’
doesn’t have the sound ‘b
uh! ! ‘ tagged on. This is a common
mistake and therefore leads to incorrect spelling
when turning phonemes into graphemes (sounds into
symbols, sounds into letters)
There are 44 phonemes
in English, but only 26 letters-hence many of
the challenges of spelling.
There is a distinction between diagraphs
(two letters making one sound e.g. sh, th) and
blends (two letters making two
sounds). The latter require clear segmentation
in sounding out.
Split vowel diagraphs – a-e
these are one sound where the two letters are
split by another letter. Example: make
the split vowel diagraph
in this word is a-e and the phoneme is a long
vowel sound. The trigraph ( three
letters one sound) example light
– igh is the trigraph
and the phoneme is i long vowel sound.
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| Vowel phonemes
and their more usual grapheme representations. |
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| /a/ |
cat |
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| /e/ |
peg, |
bread, |
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| /i/ |
pig, |
wanted, |
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| /o/ |
log, |
want, |
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| /u/ |
plug, |
love, |
look, |
would, |
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| /a/ |
pain, |
day, |
gate, |
station, |
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| /e/ |
sweet, |
heat, |
thief, |
these, |
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| /i/ |
tried, |
light, |
my |
shine |
mind |
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| /o/ |
hope, |
show |
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| /u/ |
blue, |
grew, |
tune, |
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| /oo/ |
moon, |
blue, |
grew, |
tune, |
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| /ar/ |
cart, |
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| /ur/ |
burn, |
first, |
term, |
heard, |
work, |
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| /or/ |
torn, |
door, |
warn, |
haul, |
law, |
call, |
| /er/ |
circus, |
sister, |
doctor, |
burn, |
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| /ow/ |
down |
shout |
allow, |
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| /oi/ |
coin, |
boy, |
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| /air/ |
stairs, |
bear, |
hare, |
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| /ear/ |
fear, |
beer, |
here, |
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| Consonant
phonemes and their more usual graphemic representations |
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| /b/ |
baby, |
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| /d/ |
dog, |
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| /f/ |
field, |
photo, |
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| /g/ |
game, |
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| /h/ |
hat, |
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| /j/ |
judge, |
giant, |
barge, |
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| /k/ |
cook, |
quick, |
mix, |
school, |
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| /l/ |
lamb, |
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| /m/ |
monkey, |
camb, |
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| /n/ |
nut, |
knife, |
gnat, |
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| /p/ |
paper, |
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| /r/ |
rabbit, |
wrong, |
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| /s/ |
sum, |
mouse, |
city, |
science, |
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| /t/ |
tap, |
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| /v/ |
van, |
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| /w/ |
was, |
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| /wh/ |
where, |
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| /y/ |
yes, |
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| /z/ |
zebra, |
please, |
is, |
pins, |
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| /th/ |
thin |
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| /th/ |
then |
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| /ch/ |
chip, |
watch, |
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| /sh/ |
ship, |
mission, |
chef, |
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| /zh/ |
treasure, |
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| /ng/ |
ring, |
sink, |
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| Sounds (phonemes)
of letters with picture to unlock the sound. |
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