Linda Farrell: What’s the short ‘a’ sound? Linda Farrell: What’s the short ‘o’ sound? Linda Farrell: Now we’re not gonna say the /k-tuh-pus/ part. We are gonna go to short ‘o.’ Are you ready? Okay. Linda Farrell: I tell you what we’re gonna do. So we taught Calista the motions that go with the vowel sound, so that if she can’t remember a vowel sound - what is the short ‘o’ sound? - then all she has to do … I can go like this and remind her, or she can go, oh, it’s /ah/, it’s octopus. We want her to have a scaffold to learn it. So what we did is we want her to - when she can’t remember the vowel sound real easily, we want to not have to give it to her. And she did know her - when I said, “What’s short ‘a’?”, she knew it. Linda Farrell: So we want to start out by making sure she’s solid with her short vowel sounds. Linda Farrell: For short ‘e,’ go like this. Linda Farrell: And when I ask you what the short /a/ sound is, you’re gonna go /aaaa/. That is going to remind you of the short ‘a’ sound. Can you hold an apple in your hand? And when I ask you the short ‘a’ sound, you’re gonna say, /aaa/. Linda Farrell: We’re gonna learn some motions. Farrell starts by making sure Calista has a strong foundation in her short vowel sounds. Their time together will include work on short vowel sounds, blending and manipulating sounds, reading whole words, and fluency. Reading expert Linda Farrell is helping Calista take the next step toward fluent reading … reading each word as a whole rather than one sound at a time. Linda Farrell: Calista, could you please read this column.Ĭalista: /D/, /i/, /d/, did. And she can blend those letters together to form words. She’s an early stage reader who sounds out letters accurately. Linda Farrell: What do we call that vowel sound? You say …Ĭalista is in first grade at Windy Hill Elementary School in Calvert County, Maryland. Transcript Mastering Short Vowels and Reading Whole Words with Calista, First Grader

Short vowel sounds video