step#17: 2-3 syllable words

a syllable is that part of the word that comprises of 1 vowel sound. a word can be made up of 1 syllable or many. how many syllables a word will have doesnt depend on the length of the word. it also doesnt depend on the consonant sounds. what divides a word into syllables is the number of vowel sounds in that word.

a question often raised by many childre, "why are we learning about syllables?"

it is a valid question and we need to give valid justifications.

it is important to learn how to divide words into syllables, so that when a child hears a big word, he doesnt feel scared with the length. he may try breaking the word into small syllables in his mind and attempt at spelling the word. it is seen that children who try to write a new big word by following syllabification make much less mistakes than those who randomly guess at the word.

a grade 2 child can be introduced the concept of syllables using following examples:

1 syllable words:
cat, mix, licks, watch, ship, lock, hand, home, caught, straight, stretch, and so on

2 syllable words:
window:win-dow
happy: ha-ppy
monkey: mon-key
laptop: lap-top
pencil: pen-cil
picture: pic-ture
clever: cle-ver
gifted: gif-ted 
photo: pho-to
cupboard: cup-board
...and so on

3 syllable words:
computer: com-pu-ter
telephone: te-le-phone
talented: ta-len-ted
cinema: ci-ne-ma
elephant: e-le-phant
capable: ca-pa-ble
beautiful: beau-ti-ful
fantastic: fan-tas-tic
...and so on

when the child sees the chunks into which the word is broken, he feels more encouraged to read as he knows many of these small chunks by now. when he joins the chunks, he almost knows the word he is reading.

step#16: homophones

make way!! here come homophones, something that tickles the funny bone of a student.

homophones mean similar sounding. there are many words in English that have different spellings but are sounded identically. they are different words, and thus have different spellings.

there are many homophone words that can be taught to a first-grader. some of them are:

1. sun-son
2. boy-buoy
3. cot-caught
4. flew-flu
5. which-witch
6. wood-would
7. dear-deer
8. blew-blue
9. board-bored
10. chews-choose
11. chilli-chilly
12. desert- dessert
13. flea-flee
14. weigh-way
15. weak-week
16. stare-stair
17. hair- hare
18. knot-not
19. knead- need
20. knight- night
21. mail- male
22. meet- meat
23. plain- plane
24. root-route
25. see-sea
26. I-eye
27. tail-tale
28. two-too

best method will be to have pictures for all the words, so that the child retains better.once you have taught all these, practice. first you may practice by showing a picture and asking the child which of the two homophones will fit there. or, you may show the word and show two pictures asking him which picture describes the word better. later, you may say an incomplete sentence and ask the child which of the two homophones will fit there. for example, "i can ____ an elephant (see/sea)"

step#15: homonyms

homo means same and nym means name. thus homonym simply means same name. in phonetics, it indicates those words which have same spelling, but still have various meanings. for example, the word 'park'. it has two meanings. one is noun (the ground where people go for walk, socialize and have fun). another is verb (to station some vehicle somewhere). thus while meanings vary, the 'name' remains the 'same'.

children often get confused with homonyms. you say, "let's park the car here" and they scream, "I also want to go to the park and play on swings". you say, "hold your pencil in the right way" and they argue, "I am holding the pencil in right hand and not left hand". these are frequent confusions that irk them. they start thinking, "English is so confusing and difficult. I wonder if I will ever understand it"

teaching homonym is one step taken towards minimizing such confusions. when you teach them that many words have same spellings, but have different meanings, they begin to use those words in the various appropriate ways. homonyms are also called homographs.

homonyms may be taught at grade 1 level. some of the homonyms that you may teach your 1st grader are:

1. park
2. right
3. point
4. block
5. lift
6. left
7. palm
8. fly
9. ring
10. tip
11. top
12. sign
13. wave
14. spell
15. box
16. mean
17. bore
18. trunk
19. saw
20. duck
21. roll
22. drop
23. horn
24. sink
25. date
26. ruler
27. seal
28. glasses
29. draw
30. turn
31. light
32. rock
33. bat
34. trip
35. band

step#14: short and long sounds

Children often get confused with the length of the mid vowel sound. sometimes with different lengths, different words are formed. to make it more complicated, in many such cases, they both are written in similar way in Hindi. for example, pen and pain. pen has a short ए sound while pain has the long ए sound (the way you say the alphabet A), and both pen and pain are written as पेन in Hindi. with such confusions in mind, children end up writing (if not saying), "i need my pain to write", or "i have pen in my leg"

to avoid such confusions, it is very important to teach short and long sounds of the middle vowels. you may use column method to teach this concept. (write the short sound word in first column, invite the child to think of the corresponding long sound word and then you write it the second column)

some of the short/long sound words at this level are:

1. bit-beat
2. chit-cheat
3. sit-seat
4. fit-feet
5. wit-wheat
6. hit-heat
7. it-eat
8. bin-been
9. sin-seen
10. kin-keen
11. grin-green
12. win-wean
13. bid-bead
14. did-deed
15. lid-lead
16. pill-peel
17. hill-heal
18. fill-feel
19. mill-meal
20. still-steal
21. pen-pain
22. men-main
23. pent-paint
24. sent-saint
25. live-leave
26. sick-seek
27. pick- peek
28. bet-bait
29. met-mate
30. let-late
31. get-gate
32. wet-wait
33. hell-hail
34. well-wail
35. gel-jail
36. tell-tail
37. bell- bail
38. sell- said
39. red-raid
40. wed-wade