The English language has 44 different phonemes, though some are definitely more common than others. Many of them are represented by a single letter, but equally many are created by combining two or three letters.
/ī/./ch/ /ĭ/ /m/ /p/.That means this resource is the final step before we have broken down language into individual letters. Once done with this resource, an Apprentice is ready to learn about the letters of the alphabet!
It contains 15 “posters”. Each poster introduces a new phoneme and shows images of simple/common things that start/contain/end with this phoneme. At the bottom, it also contains simple exercises to test if you really understood this new phoneme. We think these are great for hanging around the classroom, or the house, and for focusing on a single phoneme at a time.
As such, this resource is definitively pre-reader. It can be used with Apprentices who have no clue about writing or recognizing letters yet. It’s all based on sound and feeling when you change the shape of your mouth to start a new phoneme. Of course, it’s not “bad” to already start playing with alphabet / letter shapes. And it certainly helps if someone can already recognize some of them, because you can expand the exercises to include actual reading/writing of the phonemes.
This resource covers about half the phonemes (the most common and useful ones). It has a follow-up resource called Phonemic Phun that covers the other half (in less detail as they’re rare). The other resource then also includes advanced phoneme manipulation as a final test/reminder of all phonemes you’ve learned.
As usual, we recommend using the stories (which introduce language learning in a broader, more diverse context) and the digital quizzes (which can play sounds) to complement the teaching resource.
Also, yes, we know it’s spelled FANTASY not PHANTASY. This is just a fun joke to recognize our phoneme resources by title. It also illustrates different letter combinations can lead to the same phoneme.
Continue Exploring
Exhausted this resource? Below is a list of all resources (in this and other factions) around this same topic.
Product Contents
Below is a summary of this product's contents. The actual product might have even more inside, but never less.
- Explainer: Words are made out of small sound units called phonemes.
- Elkonin Box explainer and cut-out
- 15 Phoneme Posters (n, r, t, ĭ, ī, s, d, l, ē, ĕ, k, m, p, ă, ā)
- Each poster has a mix of 4 possible exercises (count phonemes, does it have it, is it at the start/middle/end, what phoneme do all these words share)
- Explainer: SCHWA, the most common sound
- A special SCHWA poster