1. HELPING CHILDREN HEAR SOUNDS IN WORDS
x You want the child to be the one to say the word—for example, kitten—slowly. Don’t
take over this job for the child! One reason for this is that when a child tries to match a
sound to a letter, the child relies not only on the sound he or she hears but also on the
place in his or her mouth from which the sound comes. That is, the child not only listens
for sounds but also feels sounds in his or her mouth.
x It’s a sign of great progress if a child begins to hear more sounds in a word even if the
child doesn’t yet know the letters that match those sounds. The ability to hear, isolate,
and manipulate sounds is the essence of phonemic awareness. Don’t dismiss this as
insignificant just because the process may not yet result in better spellings. W
x Expect children to hear and record consonants before vowels. The long vowels will
appear in your children’s writing before the short vowels. Some consonants are easier or
harder to hear depending on where in a word they are placed. An m is easier to hear at
the start and finish of a word than in the middle of the word, for example.
x You want children to stretch out words, saying them slowly, but to do this without turn-
ing every word into a line of staccato sounds. We hope the child who wants to write
blanket will say the whole word—blanket—and then maybe say bl, then an, then ket.
You don’t want this child to say blanket like this:
b l an k e t
/bah/ /lah/ /anng/ /kah/ /eh/ /tah/
This leads a child to spell a slew of extra sounds. You do, however, want a child to be
able to hear individual sounds (when asked to do so) in blanket (/b/ /l/ /a/ /n/ /k/ /e/ /t/).
It’s just that usually when we spell, we rely more on the chunks of sounds we hear.
x When you want to help children hear and record vowels, teach into the chunk (you
could also call this “the vowel cluster” or “the rime”). That is, if you want the child to
hear and record the o in stop, help the child hear /op/. The letter o can make sixteen dif-
ferent sounds, but if it is combined with a consonant to make the chunk op, there are
many fewer options. There are thirty-six rimes, or chunks, like this one that make up
most of the words your children will read and write.
x Most importantly, keep in mind that good spellers do not spell most words by sounding
them out! Instead, good spellers rely on a whole variety of strategies, including using
what they know from other known words to help them spell unknown words. The strat-
egy you’ve highlighted today is only one strategy in a writer’s repertoire. Therefore,
when you help children with spelling, instead of making a habit of only saying, “Stretch
the word out. What sounds do you hear?” you’ll also want to nudge writers to use all
the strategies available to them. “Did you have a go at that word? What strategy did
you use?” Don’t assume that children are stretching out every word, as you taught them
to do today.
May be copied for single classroom use. ©2003 by Lucy Calkins and Beth Neville, from Resources for Primary Writing, Units of Study for Primary Writing: A Yearlong Curriculum,
Lucy Calkins, Heinemann: Portsmouth, NH