Did you know that the English Language has 26 letters in the alphabet? These 26 letters make 44 letters sounds. Some letters make more than one sound.
Sixteen letters almost always make the same sound! Phonics provides the insight to know which sounds these letters make and when. The sixteen letters are what we call constant consonants. The sixteen constant consonants are B D F H J K L M N P Q R T V X Z.
There are six special letters in this list: F H K P T X. You do not use your voice if you are saying this letter sounds correct, so we call them whispered letters.
There are five more consonants, C G S W Y, and they make more than one sound on a regular basis.
That means that there are only 10 other letters which make more than one sound.
The five regular vowels, A E I O U, make up the rest of our letter sounds. An easy way to teach children to remember these regular or primary vowels is the traditional game of: [A E I O U]. The short sound is the normal sound of the vowel. Vowels have their own long and short sounds as well as being copycats.
We should note that both “W” and “Y” can sometimes act as vowels, as well as consonants. They can be very versatile letters!
“C” sometimes copies “S” and sometimes copies “K.” The “Rule of c” covers the pronunciation of the letter “c”, indicating when “c” stand for the /s/ sound. The rule is: The letter c represents /s/ before the letters e, i or y; otherwise it represents /c/.
It is important, after the student has mastered the main letter sounds, to make sure they know all the sounds a letter can make.
Hope it helps!