Lesson video

Hi, my name's Ms. Chamberlain-Webber, and I'll be teaching you spelling today.

My name's a very long name, so maybe that's why I'm so interested in spelling because it's not just about the letters in words and the order they come in.

In fact, spelling is so interesting because we can find patterns in words and today we're going to be looking at unstressed vowels within words, the ones that we find actually really hard to hear.

Let's get started.

Our lesson agenda will start with some key vocabulary that we're going to learn the definition for, for our spelling lesson.

Then we're going to look at the spelling rule and pattern we're investigating, unstressed vowels.

And finally, I'm going to give you 10 spelling words that you can write down and practise before our spelling test later on in this literacy unit.

Okay, you're going to need a pen or pencil and some paper.

So if you don't have those things in front of you right now, pause the video here and go and get them.

Make sure you're in a calm, quiet space, ready for your learning.

Key vocabulary.

I'm going to say the word, then it's your turn.

Vowel, a vowel is the letters, A, E, I, O and U.

Vowel sound.

Good, a vowel sound is a speech sound made with an open mouth.

Syllable, this is a unit of pronunciation having one vowel sound.

For example, hospital can be split into how many syllables? Show me with your fingers.

Three, hospital.

And the next word, my turn, your turn.

Polysyllabic word.

Good, this is a word with more than one syllable.

Vowel sounds, we can have two types of vowel sounds.

So, if we hear these types of vowel sounds, a, e, i, o, u, these are short vowel sounds.

In some words, we have long vowel sounds.

These are just a few examples of some long vowel sounds we can have as spellings within words.

For example, the first one is ay, ee, igh, oa and ue.

These are five examples of long vowel sounds.

So when we're looking at the words today, you might be able to identify which vowels within the words are short and which ones are long vowels sounds.

Let's have a look at this word first.

Master, your turn.

Good, I'm loving your enthusiasm.

We can split these two vowels in this word into stressed vowels and unstressed vowels.

Let me show you what I mean.

So, we know the first vowel within this word is the A, master.

Okay, you can really hear it clearly.

Pause the video here and think about the second vowel within this word.

What is it, and can you hear it? Is it a stressed vowel sound or an unstressed vowel sound? Reminder to pause the video here, have a think.

Maybe even tell someone close to you.

Press play again when you're ready to move on.

Okay, looking at the word.

The first vowel sound, the A, is a stressed vowel sound.

Hopefully, you had to think about the E.

Master, you can't hear it as well as the A.

We call these vowels we can't hear quite as well, unstressed vowel sounds.

Time to investigate with more words and spellings.

So, we're going to be exploring these eight words in lots of detail in a minute.

Let's see if you can spot anything about the vowels within these words.

What do they have in common? Pause the video here and think about these eight words for a moment.

Okay, there's some great thinking going on in this lesson already.

We're going to start looking at the top two in more detail.

Maybe you spotted something similar about the vowels and those words already.

So the first one is, bargain.

Didn't hear you, louder please, bargain.

Okay, bargain has how many vowels in it? It has, that's it, three.

Okay, let's have a look at the vowels in this word.

There's an A, then there's an A and an I.

Okay, bargain and necessary.

What do they have in common? They both have an unstressed vowel sound somewhere within both words.

I want you to pause the video here.

And I want you to decide which vowel sound within both these words is unstressed.

That means you can't hear it as well.

Press play when you're ready to continue the lesson.

Okay, it's your first challenge.

Let's see how well you did.

Both words have an unstressed A vowel sound within them.

Let's see, bargain.

I can't really hear the A at all.

The vowel I can really hear, bargain, is the I, bargain.

I can't hear the A as well, it's an unstressed vowel sound.

Necessary, same thing.

I can't hear the A very well before the R, necessary.

Let's recap what we just learnt.

The unstressed vowel sound within these two words are.

Pause the video and make sure you know.

Press play when you're ready.

Okay, let's check That's right, it's the A, unstressed vowel sound.

This is also a pattern which we can see in some other words, such as separate, boundaries, secretary and company.

Let's have a look at the next two in our spelling list.

My turn, your turn, desperate.

Generally, what do these two words have in common? Pause the video here, looking carefully at the vowel sounds within them.

Okay, I've spotted lots of vowels within both these words.

I want you to really pay special attention now to the unstressed vowel sound.

Which vowel in these words can't you hear as well? Let's say them one more time to try and help us.

Desperate, generally.

Pause the video and write down the vowel that you can't hear very well, the unstressed vowel sound within both these words.

Press play when you're ready.

Okay, here we are, did you spot it? It is the E this time, the E unstressed vowel sound is within the middle of both these words.

So, desperate, you can't hear it very well.

It sounds like the P and R are together.

You might even miss out when you spell it, so we must remember there's an E there.

Generally, this too, you can't hear very well before the R, so that's something that's similar about the unstressed E sound in both these words, they come before the R.

Time to recap, we have got unstressed E sounds within both these words.

And this is a pattern that you can see in quite a few common words, such as temperature, vegetable interesting, cemetery and frightening.

Time for our next two in our word list.

We have got, definite, business.

Okay, I think you're getting better and better at this.

Maybe you can already spot the unstressed vowel sound within these words.

So, time to give you some time.

Pause the video, picking out the vowel sounds within these words, and can you have a think about which is the unstressed vowel within both these words? Off you go, pause the video now and press play when you're ready to resume.

Okay, did you get it? It too is in the middle of the word.

This time it's an unstressed I sound.

Let's see, by saying them one more time.

Definite, I definitely can't hear the I in that word very well, it's very subtle.

Business, I think this one's a really key word that highlights that it's such a subtle vowel sound.

In fact, I can't hear the I at all in business.

So we must remember these unstressed vowels still need to be there in order to spell it correctly.

Last one in the list, what are they? Let's have a go.

Here we go, remembering that definite and business have an unstressed I sound, as well as family, easily, privilege and medicine.

Pause the video here if you would like to look at the list a bit further and highlight where the unstressed I sound are in these words.

Onto our final two words, you're doing so well.

Let's look at these, my turn, then your turn.

Category, memorable.

Okay, these vowel sounds, unstressed vowel sounds, are harder to find I think.

So, I'm going to give you some time to read them again, and think about the unstressed vowel sound.

Which vowels in these words can't you hear very well as you say them? Press play when you're ready to resume.

Okay, let's see how well you did.

It is in fact the O you can't hear very well.

I don't say category, it's a lot more subtle.

You can just hear the O's there but it's a lot more subtle, category.

Memorable, okay, that too has a very subtle O, an unstressed vowel sound.

Let's review the words we've looked at already then.

The ones we just looked at had an unstressed what vowel sound? That's right, an unstressed O.

Some more words that have an unstressed O are poisonous, corporate and factory.

You cannot hear the O very well within that word, it's an unstressed vowel sound.

You are so ready for the next part of the lesson.

You have looked at patterns really well.

It's time to test how well you've listened, okay? So our top two words were bargain and necessary.

What was the unstressed vowel sound? The A, point to them on the screen for me, can you? There and there, excellent.

Next two, in desperate and generally.

Let's remind ourselves of the unstressed vowel sound here.

It was an E, good.

Can you think of any other words that have the unstressed E sound? We had temperature, vegetable, interesting, cemetery and frightening.

Can you point to the unstressed vowel sound in the word generally? Great, you did it.

If you want to write these words down, pause the video here so that you have a list of unstressed vowel sounds with an E that you can't hear very well.

Okay, time to move on.

Our next two in our list then, definite and business.

One more time, I want you to think about what unstressed vowel sounds in these two words.

Telling me, that's right, it's the I.

Here are a list of a few more, family, easily, privilege, medicine.

Pause the video here, write down any you would like to review.

And then I would like you to circle the I in these words so you really remember they're still in the word when you're spelling them.

They're just unstressed sounds.

When you've done that, press play and resume your lesson.

Finally, we've got category and memorable.

These two have an unstressed vowel sound.

Which ones that? The O, good, can you point at them within these two words for me? Good job, along with poisonous, corporate and factory, this is unstressed O.

Pause the video here if you'd like to write any of these down and then circle the unstressed O within the word so you're really clear which one it is.

Press play when you would like to resume the lesson.

Okay, it's that time where I get to test you guys one more time.

Here I would like you to pause the video in a moment thinking about these four words on our left, and I want you to match them with our unstressed vowel sound on the right.

Time to check what you know, pausing the video here and pressing play after you've matched them.

Great job, let's see how well you did.

We are going to do our spelling words now.

We have 10 spelling words for this lesson.

These are the words you're going to write down on a piece of paper.

So make sure you've still got that to hand, in your neatest handwriting please, let's start with number one, bargain.

I'm going to put it in a sentence for you, to make sure we know the definition of each word.

So number one, I went into the shop and got a great bargain for a bag of oranges today.

So bargain, the unstressed vowel sound, point at it for me.

That's right, it's the A.

So bargain, you can hear the I, you can't really hear the A.

So we've got to remember it's there.

Write down this word, making sure you've copied it perfectly before moving on.

Number two, separate.

same thing, we've got an unstressed A sound, writing it down, remembering that although we can't hear it very well, separate, there is an A before an R in separate.

In a sentence then.

I have a separate toilet I go to, to the other people in my school.

Okay, normally we have separate men's and separate ladies toilets.

There I've used it several times in a few sentences.

Okay, check you've copied down the sentence correctly before moving on.

Number three, secretary.

A secretary is a job done by a person in a normally a supporting role.

Okay, here we go.

What is the unstressed vowel sound in this word? Well, it's the A too, before the end of our word.

Okay, secretary, remember to have an A before the R in this word.

Number four, generally.

I generally remember how to spell words with unstressed vowel sounds now I know this pattern occurs.

Maybe you've spotted something between these few words.

Have you noticed that unstressed vowel sounds usually come quite close to the consonant R.

Make sure you've copied this down correctly before moving on.

Number five, temperature, The temperature in the room at the moment is quite pleasant.

This time, our unstressed vowel sound is what vowel? It's an E, and this is quite a long word.

So it might help if you split it up into parts.

Temp-e-ra-ture, and when we're spelling words with unstressed vowel sounds, we sometimes really pronounce the unstressed vowel sound so that we remember to spell it, temperature.

That is a nice spelling strategy I like to use.

Number six, Interesting.

This spelling rule is very interesting to learn.

So the unstressed vowel sound is an E in this word.

And once again, it's next to the consonant R.

So, use that little pattern to remember how to spell this word, making sure you've written it down correctly before moving on, Number seven, business.

This one, we really couldn't hear the I in, could we? Spelling can be a funny business.

So remember to add the I after the S, sometimes I say it like busy-ness, to help me.

Number eight, privilege.

It has been a privilege to have this spelling lesson with you today.

Same thing as the last word, there is an unstressed I in this word, and this word has two I's in it.

So you need to remember which one's unstressed.

Pri, I can really hear the I in that sound, in that part of the word priv-iledge.

So I have to make sure I remember the unstressed one.

Number nine, poisonous.

There was a poisonous frog in the rainforest.

Okay, the unstressed vowel sound this time is, can you point to it? The O, that's right, poisonous.

To make sure you spell this correctly, why don't you say the unstressed O sound so that you remember to spell it like this, poisonous, when you're spending it.

Okay, finally, we've got number 10, memorable.

This O, you can hear it a little bit more than the others but it's still unstressed.

So, it's our friends with our consonant R, before the R make sure you have an O in this word, memorable.

Great job, let's check your word list one more time.

For number one, you should have written down bargain.

Number two, separate, number three, secretary, number four, generally.

Number five, temperature, number six, interesting.

Number seven, business, number eight, privilege.

Number nine, poisonous, number 10, memorable.

Good job, you have done brilliantly in the spelling lesson and I hope you've learnt more about vowel sounds within words.

Remember to use that strategy when you're spelling unstressed vowels and try and really pronounce them to make sure you remember them.

Excellent job, bye for now.