The English Phoneme Chart

The ‘Long’ Vowel Sounds

November 3, 2022lucyteachchildrenLeave a comment

A couple of weeks ago we explained that there are 20 vowel sounds in the English (UK) sound system and last week we looked at the 7 ‘short’ vowel sounds. This week we are taking a look at the remaining 13 ‘long’ vowel sounds.

Here at Teach Phonics we split them in to two groups: 7 ‘long’ vowel sounds and 6 ‘long ‘R’ controlled’ vowel sounds.

The 7 ‘long’ vowel sounds areso calleddue to the length of their pronunciation; these can often be held without distorting their sound.

The /ai,(eI)/ sound found in the words: train, tray, cake and break.

The /oa,(ǝƱ)/ sound found in the words: boat, hotel, toe and bone.

The /oi,(ɔI)/ sound found in the words: boy, coin and buoy.

The /ow,(aƱ)/ sound found in the words: owl, house, drought and hour.

The /ee,(іː)/ sound found in the words: tree, pea, me, and pony.

The /I,(aI)/ sound found in the words: iron, fly, pie and light.

The /oo,(uː)/ sound found in the words: spoon, blue, screw and you.

The 6 ‘long ‘R’ controlled’ vowel sounds are so called because of the slight /r,(r)/ sound quality that can be heard in them along with the length of their pronunciation; these can often be held without distorting their sound.

The /ar,(ɑː)/ sound found in the words: car, father (southern UK accent) and art.

The /or,(ɔː)/ sound found in the words: fork, door, walk and sauce.

The /ear,(Iǝ)/ sound found in the words: ear, here, deer and pier.

The /er,(ɜː)/ sound found in the words: bird, kerb, nurse and worm.

The /re,(Ʊǝ)/ sound found in the words: manure, tour and mature.

The /air,(eǝ)/ sound found in the words: chair, pear, square and where.

The Consonant Sounds with their Most Common Letter and Letter Combinations

October 6, 2022lucyteachchildrenLeave a comment

There are 24 consonant sounds in the English language. A consonant sound is made (produced) when the air flow is being restricted in some way, which means that the mouth doesn’t open as wide and so the jaw doesn’t drop noticeably, which is different from vowel sounds.

Here is a list of just some of the most commonly seen letter and letter combinations used to represent the 24 consonant sounds. For a more comprehensive lists check out our English Phoneme Chart (https://www.teachphonics.co.uk/phonics-phoneme-chart.html) or Alphabet Keyboard (https://www.teachphonics.co.uk/phonics-alphabet-chart.html) which can be found on our ‘Phonics’ page (https://www.teachphonics.co.uk/phonics.html):

/b,(b)/ bin, rabbit
/k,(k)/ cat, key, duck, queen, anchor, broccoli
/ch,(ʧ)/ church, watch
/d,(d)/ dog, ladder, towed
/f,(f)/ fish, puffin, phone, laugh
/g,(g)/ girl, digger, ghost
/h,(h)/ hen, who
/j,(ʤ)/ jigsaw, giant, bridge
/l,(l)/ lion, llama
/m,(m)/ man, hammer, lamb
/n,(n)/ nest, penny, knife, gnome
/ng,(ŋ)/ king, sink
/p,(p)/ panda, hippo
/r,(r)/ robin, lorry, wrist
/s,(s)/ sun, dress, city, geese, castle
/sh,(ʃ)/ ship, chef, delicious, initials, sugar
/t,(t)/ tent, butterfly, jumped
/th,(θ)/ thumb
/th,(ð)/ feather, breathe
/v,(v)/ van, sleeve, of
/w,(w)/ well, whale, penguin
/y,(j)/ yo-yo, euro
/z,(z)/ zero, puzzle, sneeze, cheese, is
/zh,(Ʒ)/ measure, television

English (UK) Vowel Sounds

November 12, 2020lucyteachchildren1 Comment

Learning to hear and differentiate the vowel sounds from consonant sounds is an important skill in understanding how words are formed. Every word in the English Language has to have a vowel sound in it and every syllable in a word also has to have a vowel sound within it. This knowledge is an important element in developing our phonemic awareness and phonics knowledge as we start to learn how to read and spell words.

There are 20 vowel sounds in the English (UK) Language, usually (in the UK Education System) split into two main categories based on sound quality:

‘Short’ vowel sounds, due to the short duration of the sound being made, the sound cannot be held onto without becoming distorted, such as the /e,(e)/ in me, pea and tree
‘Long’ vowel sounds, due to the length of their pronunciation, these can often be held without distorting their sound, such as the /oi,(ɔI)/ sound found in the words:boy, coin and buoy

Here at Teach Phonics we split the ‘long’ vowel sounds category into ‘long’ vowel sounds and ‘long ‘R’ controlled’ vowel sounds. The ‘long ’R’ controlled’ vowel sounds are so called because of the slight /r,(r)/ sound quality that can be heard in them for example the /or,(ɔː)/ sound found in the words: fork, door, walk and sauce.

The English Phoneme Chart, which uses the unique symbols of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), splits the 20 vowel sounds into two groups based on mouth position:

Monophthongs which have one mouth position throughout the sound for example /e,(e)/ in me.
Diphthongs, where the mouth position changes, giving a 2 sounds quality to the phoneme for example, /oi,(ɔI)/ inboy.