Multisensory Short Vowel Hand Symbols
For most of my twenty plus years of teaching, I have applied hand symbols to short vowel sounds whenever I am instructing students. It makes a HUGE difference in a child grasping and memorizing the CRITICAL vowel sounds; especially for a struggling learner. Remember, EVERY SINGLE syllable has a vowel sound; therefore, we really need to make sure our children understand with complete thoroughness what those vowel sounds are. By using a multisensory strategy such as hand symbols, you are giving your child a supportive tool that he or she will learn to automatically fall back on (as long as you enforce the use of it) whenever there is a question in regards to the short vowel sound.
No matter what phonics program you are using, you can add these hand symbols to it.
When you look at my Reading Resource Grid page and click on the Word Decoding image, you will come to information on using PHONICS PRINCIPLES and SYLLIBICATION RULES under the Phonics Activities and Resources link. When you are working on these skills and teaching the short vowel sounds in conjuction with the Phonics Principles, automatically let your hands do the talking as you are discussing the short vowel sounds. This will help to remind your child to do the same.
Below I have provided a video on hand symbols for using with short vowel sounds. This is a very good video. Personally, several of the hand symbols I use are slightly different. I will describe my hand symbols below so that you can choose which will work for you.
Below, you can click the button for the actual website that this video is from. Other than just Julie's video, she has a lot of nice literacy resources ---- mostly for 'make & take' activities that would be great as multisensory supports. Her site will show up a few times within my own website.
Short A: Put your hand near your mouth and make it look like you are pulling the 'aaaaaa' sound out of your mouth in a quick motion as though you are sneezing aaaaaaaachooo! Connect the short /a/ sound to the aaaaaachoo.
Short E: Use the index finger of one hand and slide it vertically down the palm of the other hand as though the index finger is falling off the edge of the palm. Make the ‘e’ ‘e’ ‘e’ e’ sound and finish with the word ‘edge’.
Short I: Use the index finger and pretend to ‘itch’ a spot on the face while saying ‘i’ ‘i’ ‘i’ ‘i’ and finish it with the word ‘itch’.
Short O: Use your index finger and circle the mouth. Use the association of when the doctor checks for a sore throat and the sound she asks you to make while doing so. Circle the mouth with the index finger while making that sound.
Short U: Fist the left hand. Fist the right hand and tap it down on the left-hand fist and quickly lift the right-fist upward with the thumb pointing up. At the same time, say ‘u’ ‘u’ ‘up’.