When children are growing they need proper attention and help in studies. Kids tend to make mistakes and parents or teachers are the ones who help them. In the learning process, the very first step that comes is alphabets and numbers. But as we know Englishbix is the English grammar website and deals with grammar-related content, we would be discussing the alphabets and not numbers.
Every growing kid needs to learn about the proper sounds of the alphabet. Kids can make use of those sounds to decode the pronunciation of different words that they would be learning in the coming years. These alphabet skills are very essential to successfully learn about phonics. The more accurately they would learn about the sounds the more fun it would be for them to spell out words.
Consonant Letters in Words with Examples
In English, there are around 26 letters of alphabet and each alphabet has at least one sound. In this case, the sounds of these letters come from blending the letters to form words.
English alphabets are divided into two major categories – Consonants and Vowels. There are 21 consonants in English alphabet namely B, C, D, F, G, H, J, K, L, M, N, P, Q, R, S, T, V, W, X, Y, Z, while vowels comprise 5 letters namely A,E, I, O, U.
Consonant Examples in Words:
| Example Words | Consonants in Word |
| Bat | “b”,”t” |
| Cloth | “c”,”l”, “t”,”h” |
| Pay | “p”,”y” |
| Car | “c”,”r” |
| Bike | “b”,”k” |
| Toy | “t”,”y” |
| Door | “D”,”r” |
| Feast | “F”, “s”, “t” |
24 Consonant Sounds with Examples
Following is a list of the 24 consonant sounds in English along with their examples:
| Consonant Phonemes | Graphemes | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| b | b, bb | bug, bubble |
| d | d, dd, ed | dad, add, milled |
| f | f, ff, ph, gh, lf, ft | fat, cliff, phone, enough, half, often |
| g | g, gg, gh,gu,gue | gun, egg, ghost, guest, prologue |
| h | h, wh | hop, who |
| d? | j, ge, g, dge, di, gg | jam, wage, giraffe, edge, soldier, exaggerate |
| k | k, c, ch, cc, lk, qu ,q(u), ck, x | kit, cat, chris, accent, folk, bouquet, queen, rack, box |
| l | l, ll | live, well |
| m | m, mm, mb, mn, lm | man, summer, comb, column, palm |
| n | n, nn,kn, gn, pn | net, funny, know, gnat, pneumonic |
| p | p, pp | pin, dippy |
| r | r, rr, wr, rh | run, carrot, wrench, rhyme |
| s | s, ss, c, sc, ps, st, ce, se | sit, less, circle, scene, psycho, listen, pace, course |
| t | t, tt, th, ed | tip, matter, thomas, ripped |
| v | v, f, ph, ve | vine, of, stephen, five |
| w | w, wh, u, o | wit, why, quick, choir |
| z | z, zz, s, ss, x, ze, se | zed, buzz, his, scissors, xylophone, craze |
| ? | s, si, z | treasure, division, azure |
| t? | ch, tch, tu, ti, te | chip, watch, future, action, righteous |
| ? | sh, ce, s, ci, si, ch, sci, ti | sham, ocean, sure, special, pension, machine, conscience, station |
| ? | th | thongs |
| ð | th | leather |
| ? | ng, n, ngue | ring, pink, tongue |
| j | y, i, j | you, onion, hallelujah |
Let’s continue learning more about the consonant sounds.
Stop and Continuant Consonant Sounds
There are two types of consonants sounds: Stop Sound and Continuant Sound.
If you are dealing with stop sound, then they are generally ‘quick and quiet’. Some of the consonants that make these sounds are B, C, D, G, H, J, K, P, T. You would notice that these consonants have a sharp ending with a sound that stops abruptly.
In case you are working with the continuant sound then they are called ‘long and loud’. Some of the letters that make these sounds are F, L, M, N, Q, R, S, V, W, X, Y, Z. You can hold these sounds for a full two seconds.
| NOTE: At this point, it is much more important for your child to know the sounds of the letters than their names. Knowledge of the letter names will be very useful for spelling, but we are not there yet! Reading precedes spelling! |
You can see that there are around one million words in the English language which makes at least 600,000 of them are used to sound them phonetically.
Working With Easier And Harder Sounds:
This time we would be dealing with the continuant sounds which make long and loud sounds. F, L, M, N, Q, R, S, V, W, X, Y, Z. These are quite easier for the kids to learn than the ‘Stop’ – quick and quiet sound.
It was observed that a lot of students (majorly kids) get easily confused with the lower-case letter ‘b’ and ‘d’ as they look so similar. Once the kids start using phoneme cards while learning Phonetics or phonic words they will easily catch-up.
Learning Letter Sounds With Kids:
While making the kids learn about these letters or consonant alphabets, you should be careful to model the correct phoneme pronunciations. These kids will easily absorb the knowledge and have a good head start and on being to sound out words properly.
Conclusion:
So, in this session, you would be able to help your kids to learn various consonants and different sounds made by these consonants. Basically, a consonant produces sound in which the air is at least partly blocked and any of the letters which represent this would be clustered or blended to form syllables. Consonants give out friction when they are spoken. Englishbix is always happy to help you with words and how to easily learn them. Till then stay tuned.
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