We have been working hard learning more about our vowel sounds through a program called Pathways to Reading. With this program, we create a silly picture called Vowel Town to help us remember all 17 vowel sounds. This will help your child become a stronger and more fluent reader.
In vowel town there are three neighborhoods, four taxis and the R Apartments:
Smile Hill: the vowels that live on this hill make you smile when you say them (ee, i, e, ae, a, u)
Open Valley: the vowels that live in open valley make your mouth wide open like a yawn (o, au, aw)
Circle Hill: the vowels that live on this hill make your mouth into a perfect circle as you make their sounds (oe, oo-like in book and oo-like in moon)
Four Taxis: your mouth moves as you make these sounds so we say they travel around town on a taxi (ie, ue, ow, ou, oi, oy)
The R Apartments: by learning the R Apartments we learn that "r" when placed next to a vowel is bossy and makes the vowel change its sound (er, ir, ur, ar, or)