Since Foundations B already teaches the schwa sound as a lazy vowel sound - I am considering ways to introduce the idea that O may also say the short /u/ sound. Here is one concept for a lesson. Today we will learn a new way for the O to be lazy. Show the phonogram card O. What does this say?/ŏ-ō-ö/ How will this sound when it says it schwa or lazy sound?ә There is an interesting story behind this sound. Long before there were computers and typewriters, all books were copied by hand. Monks would spend months copying the books word by word. Books were very expensive. Very few people knew how to read and even fewer could afford to buy a book. In some libraries books were chained to tables so that people could come in to read them. In one area of the world, the monks had a problem. People began to complain that about their handwriting. People especially began to complain about words like: Write muther, luve, wun, and munth. When they saw all the straight lines going up and down, they said, "your handwriting makes it hard for me to read! What letters did you write?" So one day the monks had an idea. They decided that when they heard the sound /ŭ/ before an V, W, TH, M or N they would spell it with an O instead. Write V, W, TH, M, and N on the board emphasizing the straight lines. Instead of writing neater, they were lazy. Today, this means that many words with the sound /ŭ/ followed by V, W, TH, M, or N are spelled with a lazy O. Technically the O in these words is not a schwa. Schwa is an unaccented vowel. However, in the 134 words where /ŭ/ is spelled with an O, the syllable is accented. Linguistically it would be more accurate to add /ŭ/ to the sounds of O. However, since any vowel can already sound like /ŭ/ in an unaccented syllable and since most Foundations students will find the concept of accent to be abstract, I am considering teaching the 4th sound of O as an alternative lazy sound. When a student misreads a word that includes a schwa or an O that is pronounced /ŭ/ be articulating the vowel, the most helpful clue would be to say, "that vowel is being lazy."
Posted on: Fri, 05 Jul 2013 22:03:54 +0000
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