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SPEECH-SOUND-TO-GUIDE-WORD TABLE FOR THE EASY-TO-READ WORDS
It is often necessary to write in “phonemic notation” or “speech-sound” notation ( a term we prefer and which we will use) when you are communicating in print about how words are said and heard. We use the speech-sound notation shown on this page.
TARGET SENTENCE IN ALPHABETIC NOTATION -- Developed by Alan Beale.
“ That quick beige fox jumped into the air over each thin dog while taking the loot. Look out, I shout, for he’s foiled you again. “
THE SAME SENTENCE IN OUR SPEECH-SOUND NOTATION
“ Thh/a/t . c/w/i/c . b/aa/zh . f/o/c/s . j/u/m/p/d . i/n/t/uu . thh/ee . /air/ . oo/v/ur . ee/ch . th/i/n . d/o/g . w/ii/l . t/aa/k/ing . thh/ee . l/uu/t. L/uuh/c . ow/t, . /II/ . sh/ow/t ., f/or . h/ee/z . f/oi/l/d . y/uu . a/g/aa/n.”
THE SENTENCE IN OUR SPEECH-SOUND NOTATION WITHOUT SLASHES & DOTS
Thhat cwic baazh focs jumpd intuu thhee air oovur eech thin dog wiil taaking thhee luut. Luuhc owt, II showt, for heez foild yuu agaan.
Please note: The spelling above represents the sounds as taught to beginning readers by the author. The sounds will vary from speaker to speaker and teacher to teacher. For the most part, we avoid teaching the “schwa” although most speakers use the schwa more than any other vowel. If you want to represent the last sound in the word “the” with a shwa -- you can invent your own symbol for a schwa -- or use “u” the short /u/ and write “th/u”. The speech-sound notation of “into” could be “i/n/t/u” if you want to schwa that last sound.
In the chart below, our speech-sound notation is on the left and the target sounds are within the guide words on the right. We have 52 speech-sound symbols
  • Most speech-sound notation uses about 43 speech-sound symbols. We created 9 more to make the teaching and reading less ambiguous.
  • These guide-words were picked because we think they are generally pronounced the same way by most speakers.
  • The bold letters within the guide-words correspond to the speech-sounds on the same line.
  • The words on our list of words were selected because they conform 100% to the spelling shown above.
  • That should make it easy to read those words with complete confidence.
/a/ as in pat
/aa/ as in ace, pay, maid
/air/ as in air, aero
/all/ as in ball
/ar/ as in car
/aw/ as in law, taut
/e/ as in bed
/ear/ as in ear
/ee/ as in bee, be, tea, dusty
/i/ as in big, dyslexic
/ice/ as in mice
/ii/ as in mine, pie, by
/ine/ as in nine

/i.ng/ as in sing
/o/ as in bob, ma
/oo/ as in go, oat, foe
/or/ as in for
/ow/ as in cow, cloud
/oy/ as in boy, boil
/u/ as in bug and the “a” in hula
/ur/ as in fur, her, sir
/uu/ as in too, cue
/uuh/ as in bush, put
/uuh.k/ as in took, look, cook
/u.l/ as in bottle (2)
/u.l.ee/ as in orally

/w/ as in wag, white
/y/ as in yet
----- consonants below ---
/b/ as in bib
/c/ as in cat & kid
/ch/ as in chat, catch
/d/ as in dad
/f/ as in fan
/g/ as in get
/h/ as in hat (1)
/j/ as in jam
/k/s/ as in box
/kw/ as in quick		 /l/ as in ail, lot
/m/ as in mom
/n/ as in an, knee (3)
/ng/ as in length
/p/ as in pat
/r/ as in rat, write
/s/ as in sun
/sh/ as in ash, shut
/s.k.ii/ as in skycap, skyway
/t/ as in ant, top
/th/ as in bath, thin
/thh/ as in them
/v/ as in of, van. love
/z/ as in as, zip		 1 -- “h” is often silent as in Baghdad and white
2 -- “le” is used only at the end of words
3 -- “kn” is used only at the start of words