Are you in need of a research-based routine for teaching the short vowel sound of the letter e to preschool or kindergarten students?
Do you get the feeling that there has to be a better way to introduce letter sounds, something more effective and engaging than what you find in your current program?
If so, I’d like to share a simple, effective, and enjoyable routine with you. It’s based on solid reading research and something I’ve been using for years with amazing results!
When introducing the letter sound e, many programs will ask you to say something like this:
“Here is the letter e (showing the printed letter). E says /ĕ/, as in elephant (showing a picture of an elephant underneath the letter). Repeat after me, E, elephant, /ĕ/”.
When I taught this way, most students eventually caught on. But there were too many kids, especially children at risk for reading struggles, who took so long to master and RETAIN letter sounds, that I wondered if there was a better way.
And there was! After years of diving into research studies and professional books, as well as signing up for every structured literacy training I could attend, I began making changes to my instructional routine of teaching letter sounds and have seen great progress.
Below, you’ll find a short explanation of the steps I follow and why they work. I hope you’ll get some inspiration for something new and easy to try with your own students!
Routine for Introducing the Letter E and Its Short Sound
You can watch this video to get an idea of the entire routine. You can even play it for your students!
Start with speech.
Why?
We know that activating prior knowledge is an effective strategy to teach any new concept. It’s how we make new learning stick. So by beginning our lesson with spoken language, we allow students to build on existing knowledge and better connect new information like printed letters. Since speaking comes naturally and reading does not, starting our instruction with something easy and familiar (such as talking!), and THEN relating that speech to print, provides our children with a solid foundation for learning to read and write. I believe this gives children the greatest chance of success.
How?
Say 3-6 words that begin with the short sound of the letter e, such as echo, edge, and elephant. Really stretch out the initial sound for emphasis on the vowel. Ask children to repeat each word after you say it. Projecting a visual of each word helps add interest and can be especially helpful for students with limited English vocabulary and kids who struggle with attention. Tell students that all of these words begin with the short vowel sound /ĕ/.
Draw attention to what your mouth does when you make the short e sound.
Why?
Helping our students observe how their mouths look and feel while producing a sound helps make an abstract concept more concrete. This also adds an extra multisensory component to our instruction, which is beneficial for many of our kids.
How?
Ask students to notice what their mouth is doing to make the sound /ĕ/. Draw attention to the fact that our mouth needs to open a bit with the corners of our mouth stretching and our chin dropping a little. Contrast this to the short o or short a sounds where our mouth opens wider. If you teach a small group, hold up a mirror to let students look at their face while they make the short e sound. If you teach a larger group, just model the articulatory features and/or display a sound articulation card.
Note: Some students struggle to hear the difference between the short i and short e sounds. Emphasizing the mouth formation of each (especially the chin drop for the short e) helps students understand the differences better. I make a little hook with my finger (in the shape of the lowercase letter e) and use that to pull my chin down a little as an additional memory cue.
Introduce the printed letter with an EMBEDDED mnemonic.
Why?
The research on this is very convincing. Studies going back decades showed that using embedded keyword images to teach letter-sound relationships was more effective for student acquisition AND retention of taught letter sounds than other methods. The other methods include what you’ll find in many reading programs today – a keyword pictured above, below, or beside the printed letter. One study even found that using no picture (just a keyword) was more effective than having a picture next to (not embedded within) the letter! Having an embedded picture in the letter was the most effective method!
How?
Now it’s time to introduce the printed letter. But not just a plain letter, an embedded letter. The image of a keyword such as “edge” embedded in the letter e helps solidify the connection between letter and sound.
When students begin blending individual sounds into words (a.k.a. decoding), it’s helpful if they really stretch out the vowel sound. This greatly benefits students with limited working memory. If you ever have students who sound out /r/…/ĕ/…/d/ and they say something like “dog”, you know what I mean. They can only hang onto the last sound in their memory, so they just guess at a word that begins with /d/ and hope for the best. But if they can blend the /rĕ/ and hold onto that short e sound until they slide into the /d/, they’ll be more likely to read the word accurately.
I like to build this “stretching out” habit early, so each time we learn a new vowel, I challenge them to hold onto the sound as long as they can. I tell my students to stretch out or sing the vowel sounds while making a gesture. The gesture helps cement the letter-sound relationship but should be faded out after students master the sound (so as not to impede fluency). For the short e sound, we use a gesture touching along the edge of our desk while stretching out the sound. Have fun with this by switching up the tone and/or volume of your voice as you hold onto the sound and ask students to do the same.
Model and practice proper letter formation.
Why?
Reading and writing are the essential building blocks for strong communication and literacy skills. While our young students are far away from reading life-changing novels or writing powerful persuasive essays, it’s important for them to see early on how closely linked reading and writing are, even just at the letter-sound level. Plus, it’s easier to prevent inefficient letter formation now than to change ingrained habits later!
How?
I try to make my letter formation language easy to understand. You may have different wording from a program you’ve used, or you may wish to change up how you say this, but here’s what I say as I model how to write the lowercase letter e:
First, I tell them that the lowercase e is a special letter to make because it begins differently than any other letter. I show them how important it is to start halfway between the bottom and the middle line.
Then I simply say, “Little line out. Then up (to the middle) and back down around.”
I usually have students practice without a writing utensil a few times before I ask them to write with a dry-erase marker or pencil. This is just so I can make sure they’ve got the movements down before they put it on paper. My favorite is to use a tray of beads (a lot less messy than sand or shaving cream!).
Research-Aligned Alphabet Resources
Do you need engaging and effective resources to implement the steps above?
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Sources:
Ehri, L. C., Deffner, N. D., & Wilce, L. S. (1984). Pictorial mnemonics for phonics. Journal of Educational Psychology, 76(5), 880–893. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.76.5.880
Ehri, L. C. (2013). Orthographic Mapping in the Acquisition of Sight Word Reading, Spelling Memory, and Vocabulary Learning. Scientific Studies of Reading, 18(1), 5–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/10888438.2013.819356
Ehri, L.C. (2022). What Teachers Need to Know and Do to Teach Letter–Sounds, Phonemic Awareness, Word Reading, and Phonics. The Reading Teacher, 76(1), 53-61. https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.2095
McNamara, G. (2012). The effectiveness of embedded picture mnemonic alphabet cards on letter recognition and letter sound knowledge. Theses and Dissertations. 302. https://rdw.rowan.edu/etd/302
Shmidman, A., & Ehri, L. (2010). Embedded Picture Mnemonics to Learn Letters. Scientific Studies of Reading, 14(2), 159–182. https://doi.org/10.1080/10888430903117492