The Thinking Vowels™ “Head-Bop” Trick for Decoding Tricky Vowels with the Schwa Sound

The Superhero Vowels® and their “Short & Lazy” Sound Disguises

Like those pesky, high-frequency, one syllable sight words: of, was, come, love, what, some, want, etc… Well thanks to Tara Settle and her brilliant “Head-Bop/Thinking Vowels” trick, we can become even better Word Doctors, while at the same time, clear out some of the most frequent offenders that would otherwise have to be sentenced to Word Jail! (Note that in the “Word Jail” video was made before Tara had shared her trick with me, and so you will see many of the above word-offenders serving out their time!)

How to Decode “Undecodable” Words (So Kids Don’t Have to Memorize Them!)

Sometimes a vowel just can’t make up his mind which sound to make… “Should I be long?… Should I be short?…. I just can’t make up my mind— Uhhhhhhhhhhh?”  (And here is where you give yourself a big BOP ON THE HEAD while making the “uhhhhh” sound, while prompting the kids to do the same!)

This handy “action-based” cue easily prompts kids to try the schwa, or “uhhh,” which is the MOST LIKELY sound-alternative for vowels that “stray” from their original sounds, allowing them to now easily decode: of, was, some, come, done, want, from, love, nothing, brother, again, around, among,  another, something, etc…  (For more tricks like this, as well as how to know when words really do have to be sentenced to jail time, you can check out this post.)

So here’s the trick for helping kids easily decode those seemingly “undecodable” words!

 

What I love about this trick is the power that it gives learners over text, minimizing the need to memorize words that can now be read! Plus, look at how many words can now be “paroled” from Word Jail!

Thanks to Tara and her student word doctors who who identified this tricky vowel-shifting pattern, kids all across the country now have a lot less sight words to memorize! 

Thinking Outside the Box is Easy Once Kids Know What’s In It

For more on “teaching the READER, not teaching the reading,” as well as insight into the brain on memorizing sight words vs. decoding text, click here or on the pictures below!

You can also check out Tara’s most recent post for more on how she doesn’t teach sight words, here!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Join in the discussion in the new Facebook Group, and check out Tara’s original post, or her awesome blog with lots of oodles of ALL FREE resources for teachers! It’s called Settle On In and you can find it here.

Until Next Time,
Katie :-)

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