teaching /wh/ or /w/

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  • November 8, 2011 at 12:28 am
    JenniferM
    Participant

    Ok – Quick question:

    when, where, whale, which, etc., etc.

    The proper pronunciation of these words would be /wh/, but around here, we just say /w/.    In other words, “which” and “witch” sound identical (homophones).  How should I teach this to my daughter?  Is it necessary to differentiate?  For instance, we were reading together recently, and I was helping her sound out “what.”  She laughed when I sounded it out correctly, and said we don’t say /wh/at.  Now, if I were back in the classroom, I would teach it as the manual outlined!!  But for actually learning to read, is there any reason?  (for spelling purposes, perhaps…)

    Thanks,

    Jennifer

    November 8, 2011 at 1:11 am
    CindyS
    Participant

    I treat the h in /wh/ as a silent letter for phonics instruction. For spelling, I emphasis the w-H when I give the word so that it is obvious to the child what to write. You are right, they do giggle. This eventually just goes away because they’ll catch on quickly.

    Blessings,

    Cindy

    November 8, 2011 at 1:26 am
    Sara B.
    Participant

    I do the same as Cindy.  We, too, say them the same.  Truthfully, I don’t even know how to say it “properly!”  😛

    November 8, 2011 at 3:29 am
    MamaSnow
    Participant

    You know, I never really thought about that either…I’m not even sure what I told my dd when we first came across it either!! One thing I have done, however, when we come across words that don’t fit the ‘normal’ phonics patterns is to just tell her it’s a “funny word”. While we did have a phonics base to our reading instruction, we didn’t follow a formal phonics curriculum and just sort of learned things as they came up. We are just starting to use All About Spelling for spelling however, which is very phonics based and I chose that in part so we could go back and learn all the “rules” as they apply to spelling since we didn’t really do formal phonics in learning how to read, so I guess we’ll get to that eventually. =)

    Jen

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