1. Reading and Writing 101
Vowel and Consonant
Phonemes

2. Learning Objectives

To learn the nature of phonemes in words

To use phonemic awareness to help us spell and
speak better.

3. Introduction

Do you face any of the following challenges
when you read and spell:
1) Slow down when you face bigger words
2) Say out a big word when you spell
3) Confused between letter sounds, such as 'en' or
'on' , 'ir' or 'er', 'tion' or 'sion', when you spell

If you do, that's because your knowledge of
letter sounds is yet incomplete!

You can easily read and spell when you are
familiar with letter sounds.

4. Phonemic Awareness

Therefore, to read and spell effectively, you must
be familiar with letter sounds.

Letter sounds are called Phonemes.

A Phoneme is the smallest sound unit in a word.

For example, all these words have 3 sounds each:
1) cat - /c/ /a/ /t/
2) pin - /p/ /i/ /n/
3) ton - /t/ /o/ /n/

Phonemes are represented by backward slashes.

5. Phonemes

In English, there is a total of 44 phonemes from
26 alphabets – 5 vowels and 21 consonants.

5 vowels – 20 phonemes

21 consonants – 24 phonemes

These 44 phonemes represent 95% of all
English words as they are spoken. For example,
for the letter 'a', these are different phonemes:

/a/ nt ban /a/ na sw /a/ n

b /a/ by zebr /a/ b /a/ ll

6. Applying Phonemic Awareness
When you have a strong sense of Phonemic
Awareness, you are break up a word into its
phonemes:
1) Break – /b/ /r/ /ea/ /k/
2) Class – /c/ /l/ /a/ /ss/
3) Teacher – /t/ /ea/ /ch/ /er/
4) Sleep - /s/ /l/ /ee/ /p/
Q: You have learnt about Digraphs, Trigraphs and
Blends. Can you spot them above?

7. Phonemes – Voiced & Unvoiced

Some Phonemes are Voiced and some, Unvoiced.

Place your index and middle finger on your throat
and try these phonemes:
Voiced Phonemes- when your vocal cords vibrate.
B, V, Z, Fea/th/er
Unvoiced Phonemes- when your vocal cords don't
vibrate.
P, F, S, /th/umb

Q: Vowel Phonemes are all voiced. Can you try
sounding /a/, /e/ , /i/, /o/ & /u/ ?

8. Learning Activity

What are the phonemes in these words?
1) Capture
2) Fashion
3) Horrify
4) Garden
5) Suddenly

Hint: Use your knowledge of digraphs and
trigraphs to help you.

9. Learning Activity Answers

What are the phonemes in these words?
1) Capture - /c/ , /a/ , /p/ , /t/ , /ure/
2) Fashion - /f/ , /a/ , /sh/ , /i/ , /o/ , /n/
3) Horrify - /h/ , /o/ , /rr/ , /i/ , /f/ , /y/
4) Garden - /g/ , /ar/ , /d/ , /e/ , /n/
5) Suddenly - /s/ , /u/ , /dd/ , /e/ , /n/ , /l/ , /y/

The digraphs are: /sh/ , /rr/ , /ar/ and /dd/.
The trigraph is /ure/.

10. Discussion

What are phonemes?

Why is it important to have strong phonemic
awareness?

How do we apply this knowledge?

11. Discussion

Phonemes are letter sounds.

Phonemic awareness can help us to sound the
phonemes in words so we can spell and read
better.

We break up a word into its phonemes.