A REVIEW OF PHONICS GENERALIZATIONS
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Consonants | Vowels | Syllabication | Accent

Consonants

Consonant letters vowels. Consonant speech sounds are formed by modifying, altering, or obstructing the stream of vocal sound with the organs of speech. These obstructions may be stops, fricatives, or resonants. Consonant sounds are relatively consistent and have a regular grapheme-phoneme relationship. They include b, d, f, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, v, w, y (initial position).

Consonants c and g

• Hard c pronounced like k when followed by a, o, u (cup, cat).
• Soft c pronounced like s when followed by i, e, y (city, cent).
• Hard g when followed by a, o,u (go, gay).
• Soft g when followed by i, e, y; sounds like j (gentle, gyp).

Consonant Blends
A consonant blend is a combination of two or three consonant letters blended in such a way that each letter in the blend keeps its own identity: bl. sl, cl, fl, gI, pl, br, cr, dr, fr, gr, pr, tr, sc, sk, sl, sw, sn, sp, sm. spl, spr, str, ng, nk, tw, dw.

Consonant Digraphs
A consonant digraph is a combination of two consonant letters representing one phoneme or speech sound that is not a blend of the two letters: sh, ch, wh, ck, ph, gh, th.

Silent Consonants
Silent consonants are the consonants that, when combined with specific other letters, are not pronounced. In the examples that follow, the silent consonants are the ones in parentheses, and the letters shown with them are the specific letters that cause them to be silent in combination. (There are exceptions, however).

i(gh) sight, brigh
m(b) comb, lamb
(w,)r wren, wrong
(l)k talk, walk
(k)n knew, knife
s(t) listen, hasten
f(t) often, soften

Vowels

The vowels are the letters a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y. The vowel speech sounds are produced in the resonance chamber formed by the stream of air passing through in the oral cavity.

Short vowels: a, e, i, o, u (sometimes y).
A single vowel in a medial position usually has the short vowel sound: consonant, vowel, consonant (CVC). A diacritical mark called a breve ? may indicate the short vowel: pat, sad, led, sit, pot, dip, gıp.

Long vowels: a, e, i, o, u, (sometimes y).
The long vowel sounds the same as the alphabet letter name of the vowel. It is indicated with the diacritical mark e, called a macron: go, cake, eel, ice, no, uniform, cry.

Double Vowels: Vowel Digraph
Frequently, when two vowels are adjacent, the first vowel has the long sound, whereas the second is silent. Some research has shown this generalization to hold true about 45 percent of the time: tie, coat, rain, eat, pay.

Final e
In words with a vowel-consonant-e pattern (VCE), the vowel frequently has the long sound and the e is silent. Research has shown this generalization to hold true about 60 percent of the time: make, Pete, slide, hope, cube.

Vowels Modified by r
Vowels followed by the letter r are neither long nor short, but the sound is modified by the letter r. This generalization holds true about 85 percent of the time: star, her, stir, horn, fur.

Diphthong
A diphthong consists of two adjacent printed symbols representing two vowels, each of which contributes to a blended speech sound: joy, toil, cow, house, few.

Schwa Sound
This is the vowel sound in an unaccented syllable and is indicated with the symbol ?: balloon, eaten, beautify, button, circus.

Syllabication

Number of Syllables
There are as many syllables in a word as there are vowel sounds heard: bruise (one syllable), beautiful (three syllables).

Two Consonants (VC-CV)
If the initial vowel is followed by two consonants, divide the word between the two consonants. This rule holds true about 80 percent of the time: con-tact, let-ter, mar-ket.

Single Consonant (V-CV)
If the initial vowel is followed by one consonant, the consonant usually begins the second syllable. Although there are many exceptions to this rule, the generalization holds true about 50 percent of the time: mo-tor, na-tion, stu-dent.

Consonant -le (C-le) Endings
If a word ends in -le, the consonant preceding the -le begins the last syllable. This generalization holds true about 95 percent of the time: ta-ble, pur-ple, han-dle.

Consonant Blends and Consonant Digraphs
Consonant blends and digraphs are not divided when separating a word into syllables. This holds true 100 percent of the time: teach-er, graph-ic, de-scribe.

Prefixes and Suffixes
Prefixes and suffixes usually form a separate syllable: re-plac-Ing, dis- cour-age-ment.

Suffix -ed
If the suffix -ed is preceded by d or t, it forms a separate syllable and is pronounced -ed. If the suffix -ed is not preceded by a d or t, it does not form a separate syllable. It is pronounced like t when it follows an unvoiced consonant, and it is pronounced like d when it follows a voiced consonant: sanded (ed), patted (ed), asked (t), pushed (t), tamed (d), crazed (d).

Open and Closed Syllables
Syllables that end with a consonant are closed syllables, and the vowel is short: can-vass. Syllables that end with a vowel are open syllables, and the vowel is long: ba-by.

The y Sound in One-Syllable Words and Multisyllable Words
When the y is the final sound in a one-syllable word, it usually has the sound of a long I: cry, my play. When the y is the final sound of a multisyllable word, it usually has the long e sound: funny lady.

Accent

When there is no other clue in a two-syllable word, the accent frequently falls on the first syllable. This generalization is true about 80 percent of the time: pen' cil, sau'cer.

In inflected or derived forms of words, the primary accent usually falls on or within the root word: flx'es, untouched'.

Two vowels together in the last syllable of a word give a clue to an accented final syllable: remain', repeal'.

If two identical consonants are in a word, the syllable before the double consonant is usually accented: big'ger, win'ner. The primary accent usually falls on the syllable preceding these suffixes -ion, -ity, -Ic, -ical, -ian, -ial, -ious. For example: at ten' tion, hys ter' ical,bar bar'ian, bil'ious.