Sound Play — Changing Sounds
You can play with the sounds in a word to make a brand-new word. Say a word slowly and listen to each sound. If you change the first sound of 'cat' to /h/, you get 'hat'. If you take the /s/ off 'stop', you get 'top'. If you add /s/ to the start of 'pin', you get 'spin'. Adding, taking away, and swapping sounds is called phoneme manipulation.
Worked examples
Change the first sound in 'cat' to /h/. What word do you make?
Say 'cat' = /c/ /a/ /t/. Swap /c/ for /h/: /h/ /a/ /t/ = 'hat'.
Take the /s/ away from 'spin'. What word is left?
'spin' = /s/ /p/ /i/ /n/. Take off /s/: /p/ /i/ /n/ = 'pin'.
Tips
- •Say the word slowly and stretch out each sound.
- •Change only the one sound the question asks about — keep the rest the same.
- •Say your new word out loud to check it is a real word.
Key words
soundphonemeaddtake awayswap