How can I make a story about ‘Y’? It wants some recognition. It isn’t a he/she so it’s an it. The letter Y makes a lot of different sounds in the English language, and it gets overlooked. We could discuss the ‘p’ word but why would we want to feel ill? Should we consider it our job so that we can get one later if we complete this dreaded ‘p’ word now called phonics. I read news articles and wonder what in the yikey are these people are talking about because they do not know how to construct a sentence. That isn’t phonics. Phonics is how a word sounds depending on the word. Consider the letter ‘Y’
It has a few different sounds depending on the word. Some of these words have different root languages so a ‘y’ was used instead of a letter ‘i’ or ‘e’. it is a letter ‘y’, but it can sound like:
Long E sound as in lady
Long I sound as in shy
Short I sound as in gym
And the consonant Y sound as in yes
The only time we have to worry about short and long sounds of letters is when a vowel is being talked about. These are the vowels that have short sounds or long sounds. In the dictionary it will show you how the letters are pronounced; long or short. The long vowel has a straight, horizontal line above it called a macron. The short vowel has a breve above it which looks like the outline of the bottom of a bowl or a smile. These denote whether it’s a long or short vowel. These are the vowels.
A E I O U and sometimes Y
Short A sound as in Call or Cat
Long A sound as in late
Short E sound as in shed
Long E sound as in meet
Short I sound as in mist
Long I sound as in like
Short O sound as in octopus
Long O sound as in most
Short U as in must
Long U as in uniform
U sound (sounds like oo) as in astute
Also, if you see an upside down ‘e’ in the dictionary it wants you to pronounce it ‘uh’ even though it’s the letter ‘a’ as in the word ‘astute’. This sound can be used for all of the vowels, though, not just the vowel ‘a’ this situation is called a Schwa sound. I saw the example of the word parrot being used. So instead of saying the vowel correctly we can use the sound of ‘uh’ for the letter ‘O’. This schwa came about in the 1800’s. In my opinion, why even have correct vowel sounds?? We could just say ‘uh’ for every vowel sound just to make learning how to read even more hideous. I am sure I forgot something because of my shock that the ‘uh’ is an actual situation. But now if we say things correctly, we sound uninhabitable.
I forgot the vowel u and how it sounds in the word ‘put’. Please distribute that somewhere in this list and I will keep adding…
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