MULTIPLE SOUNDS OF CONSONANT DIGRAPHS
(First Part)
After so many years of teaching Kindergartners through eleventh graders—yes, I’m VERY OLD—I have learned the value of teaching ALL the sounds a consonant digraph can make when I first introduce a consonant digraph. Then I know my students won’t be surprised by an unknown sound of a consonant digraph.
Here are a couple of examples of how I introduce and teach two consonant digraphs.
In English we make two sounds of the “th” consonant digraph: the “soft” unvoiced sound (as in “thin”) and the “hard” voiced sound (as in “that”).
Using the Silent Elephant “e” sight word method, I teach the following high frequency voiced “th” words quickly, as children will need them in primary reading:
the that they this there
their them then these than
those though thus thou thee
Then I tell children this hint: “Use the unvoiced sound for ALL the rest of the “th” words.”
The “wh” consonant digraph also has two sounds. It makes the “h” sound for 5 special words in this special story that children and I have fun acting out:
(Knock on the door.)
First character: “Who is it?”
Second character: Says his/her name.
First character pretends he/she didn’t hear: “Whom did you say?”
Second character: Says his/her name again.
First character puts his/her hands on his/her hips and looks concerned: “Who’s going to eat my whole (shape hands in a circle) pie? (Pause) But whose pie is it?”
Second character: “Yours. So, you get to eat it, unless you’d like to share.”
(Everyone giggles!)
When I tutored from my home (before COVID), one of my little boys always jumped up and said, “Will you share your pie, Mom?”
The children and I act this funny story out until they have these 5 words learned. We practice listening to the /h/ sound in the words as we write them.
The second sound of “wh” is /hw/.
To teach the /hw/ sound, I have children put one of their hands with the palm facing their mouth close in front of their mouth. We say the word “wag” and feel the consonant “w” sound on the palm of our hand. We discuss that we can barely feel any air on our hand.
Next, we keep our hand in the same place and say with strong feeling, “Where have you been? What were you doing? Why are you so late? When were you supposed to be home?” We discuss that we can feel lots and lots of warm air blowing on our hand! They love this activity and instantly understand the difference in the 2 sounds.
This activity is also helpful in Spelling, if your children are wondering whether to spell a word with a “w” or a “wh”, have them put their hand in front of their mouths to discover if they hardly feel any air or if they feel lots of warm air blowing on their hand. They need to spell a word with “wh” instead of a “w” when they feel lots of warm air blowing on their hand.
When we are teaching a particular consonant digraph, we can emphasize the most common sound(s) in our lesson for the day, but we should always teach and/or review ALL sounds.
Once children know that a particular consonant digraph has multiple sounds and they learn each sound right away, they are not surprised or frustrated when suddenly a sound pops up in a word that they were not expecting. Instead, children will be anxiously waiting to learn to read new words with ALL of the sounds!
I will share more teaching strategies for teaching the “ch” and “gh” consonant digraphs next time. In the meantime, have fun with the multiple sounds of “th” and “wh”!
If you have further questions about teaching consonant digraphs, feel free to contact us.