|
SLS Programs: | |||
 |
||||
| Stevenson Reading | |
|||
|
||||
| Cursive Writing | ||||
|
||||
| Essential Grammar | ||||
|
||||
| Other Programs | ||||
|
||||
|
Latest News | |
 |
||
| Workshops & Conferences | |
|
|
||
| Stevenson Forums | |
|
|
||
| FAQs | |
|
|
||
| Our Newsletter: "Food for Thought" |
||
|
||
| Consulting | ||
|
||
| Teaching Resources | ||
|
||
| Links | ||
|
||
Recent Article from Winter/Spring 2004:
What Sound Does Short o Make?
We have been giving a number of mini-workshops on the new Lonely Vowels books that came out last fall - with some interesting results. Almost every workshop so far has raised some spirited discussion about the sound that short o makes (i.e., the vowel sound in pot, top, on and sock.) There have been essentially two issues raised. The first issue is the way in which we chose to represent the short o sound in print. This point is not extremely important, but it is worth some clarification. The second issue is the different way in which people pronounce vowels. That issue has more important ramifications for teaching reading.Regarding the first point, in The Lonely Vowels Teacher’s Manual we introduced Lonely o (short o) like this: “He says /aw/. [Pronounce this like the o in hot…].” There are several common technical symbol sets for representing different phonemes, including the dictionary pronunciation key, the International Phonetic Alphabet and the Unicode of diacritical marks. We chose not to use any such symbol set because many teachers are not familiar with all of the symbols in any set (nor are we). Instead, we relied on a combination of directives (e.g., “like the o in hot…”) and simple context to make it clear what sound we intended. In most instances everyone knew what we meant, but our choice of “/aw/” seems to bother some people. We will try to find a simple nontechnical alternative for our first reprint.
At the heart of some objections to the “/aw/” representation is the lingering issue of dialect. In one mini-workshop, someone insisted that the vowel sound in lawn was not the same as the vowel sound in pond. Someone else disagreed, and the audience began to take sides. In another session, someone said that the vowel sound in hot is not the same as the vowel sound in on. Nobody else could hear any difference, although we pointed out the differences between the short a sound in mat and man, and everyone could hear that distinction. Some of these discussions were fairly amusing. Everyone tends to think that the way they pronounce short o is the way it should be pronounced.
In the Stevenson Program, however, the way that the student already pronounces short o is how the student should pronounce short o. We are not trying to make everyone speak like Tom Brokaw or Diane Sawyer. Both teachers and students tend to have accents. It is quite possible to hear three or four different ways of pronouncing short o in the same classroom. Please note that The Lonely Vowels Teacher’s Manual directs the teacher to use two related clues each time a new short vowel sound is taught. The first clue draws on the prior knowledge of students about the peanut butter and jelly friends and emphasizes the visual modality, so the student will focus on a single (lonely) vowel. This image sticks in memory. The second clue relates the sound of the new vowel to a specific word. Therefore, how the student pronounces the vowel sound in on is how the student will pronounce lonely o; how the student pronounces the vowel sound in at is how she or he will pronounce lonely a, etc. These different clues are linked together and it is important that you use both for each vowel. In future issues of Food For Thought, we will talk more about our approach to dialect issues.
|
|
 |
|
©
2002 Stevenson Learning Skills, Inc. All rights reserved.
Stevenson Reading • Cursive Writing • Essential Grammar • Other Programs News • Workshops/Conferences • Forums • FAQs • Our Newsletter • Consulting Services • Ordering/Catalogue About Us • Contact Us • Site Map |
