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We are on page 14 of The Reading Lesson today and they word "a" is introduced but it does not say how to teach them that this is a different sound from a-apple. Should I teach it as a-acorn or a-like the "u" sound.

"u" sound like in "up" is how i've seen it explained...

I have heard "a" as a pronoun pronounced either as a in acorn or the "u" sound. I think I would practice reading a few sentences of a book aloud myself and see how I say it naturally and then teach it that way. I think it also is different dialect where you live and how people talk.
Val

I have not used the reading lesson. I have used 100 EZ lessons and are currently using Ordinary Parent's Guide and both guides told me to just teach it to her as a sight word. It doesn't follow the "rule" for that letter sound. So I just told her when you see 'a' alone then it says "uhhh" and she has never had a problem with it.

Most everyone I have met do not actually say "a -acorn" sound when they see the word a. It is usually shortened and has some variation of "uhh" so that is what we teach.

Thanks so much ladies! When I did the lesson with him I just told him that when "a" is by itself it says "uhh", I just wasn't sure I was right or if there was a rule I was supposed to be teaching. Thanks for the help.

I'm chuckling because I went back and forth in my mind about the same thing! I finally decided on "uhh". It was a little confusing for my dd... after all of that short a practice, she initially read the word "a" like "ahhh"... but I kept explaining that when "a" is by itself it's the word "uhh". Oh well. They probably should've waited to introduce that.

We had some similar problems because phonics varies a little with accents.We are English so our pronounciation is alittle different .

We are having even more fun with this today, because ds keeps reading it like and "o" because I had already told him that "a" pretends to be an "o" sometimes when we were reading his name (Ricardo). Poor thing now he has to remember three different sounds for "a".

In the book Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons, it teaches to say "uh" when you see the letter"a" alone. my son hasn't had a problem and is loving reading . we are on lesson 84! this is off subject but we just started doing Victory Drill and my son and i love it!

rni'smommy wrote:We are having even more fun with this today, because ds keeps reading it like and "o" because I had already told him that "a" pretends to be an "o" sometimes when we were reading his name (Ricardo). Poor thing now he has to remember three different sounds for "a".

Poor thing?...nah. The letter "a" does represent three sounds. He would have needed to learn that eventually, anyway!