Soft Sounds

Examples:

/f/ sound this is unvoiced, meaning only air passes through the mouth whereas /v/ makes the same mouth movement but /v/ is voiced (you’re making a sound with the vocal cords) – practice f/a/n versus v/a/n.

/l/ the tip of your tongue reaches the ridge of your gum behind your teeth.

/m/ The mouth should not open at all during this sound, all of the air should come out of the nose.

It can be fun to look at the sound card and practice together at home.  Younger children will love joining in this game at home too and older siblings can support by playing along or being the part of the adult by modelling when necessary.

Video: Different soft sounds for the first alphabetic sounds

As the children progress in their phonics they begin to learn that some sounds when accompanied by another sound then they make a ‘special friend’ for example a ‘s’ and a ‘h’ make the sound ‘sh’.

Video: the different digraph (2 letters making one sound), trigraph (3 letters making one sound) and ‘split digraph’ (sound that is split with a consonant in between the two letters such as a-e in the word cake) sounds

It is very beneficial for children to practice recognising their sounds and then being able to do them speedily.