Common Phonological Error: Affricates

Take a look at these pictures. They represent sounds that are often difficult for our emerging readers.

Chick

Dragon

Jet

Truck

The initial sounds in these words, j, tr, dr, and ch are called affricates. Many teachers have never heard of this term, despite the fact that these letter combinations are often confusing for young children. It may seem perplexing to us, but these sounds are made in a certain location in the mouth, which leads to them being easily confused. 

Look at your students’ authentic writing. You may see words such as chrip for trip, jran for train, or even jiv for drive. We can understand the vowel changes in these words but we may wonder why the consonant substitutions are occurring. When teachers (and families) know about affricates, these types of errors are easily fixed. 

We suggest placing little toys around the room, as our pictures indicate. Children will wonder what you are up to! You can hand out jellybeans as treats, as further incentive to talk about affricates.

            

You can have children sort pictures according to their initial sound. For example, include pictures of a dress, dragon, drum, train, tray, truck, chimney, chain, chin, jar, jet, and jump. Children place these in columns according to the sound they hear. For children who make many errors with affricates, begin by having them compare pictures of only two letter/letter combinations, such as j with tr. I add the other letters as children progress.

             

In our experience up to a third of emerging readers confuse these sounds. If affricates are not understood, teachers and families are easily confused as to why these substitutions are occurring. If we can’t identify the cause, we can’t fix the errors. 

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Standards Alignment:

NAEYC - 2.E.06

Head Start - VII. B & C.

Affricate Poem

In a previous post, we discussed affricates, a common phonological error made by young children. We have even seen 6th graders make these kinds of mistakes. That's why it is important to correct the confusion that often results from the letters/letter combinations: j, tr, dr, and ch. You can read more about these ideas by clicking Affricate Instruction. 

As part of any phonics instruction, we like to have children go on word hunts to see if they can find examples of words containing the target letters. Using poetry is always a help in this. Even if children cannot read all of the words, they can identify the letters. This helps with concept of word, developing visual skills, and is the first step in reading high-frequency words. Children can underline, circle, or use our favorite, highlighter tape, to find words containing affricates or other phonics features. 

After we posted our original discussion of affricates, several teachers pointed out to us that it was difficult to find poems that contained this feature.  So...we decided to write our own silly poem. Read this little ditty to your children several times. Then have them circle the words that start with j, tr, dr, and ch. This heightens awareness of affricates. 

Jill's Word Trick! 

A silly word game sat on the tray,

“Come on let’s match words,” said the boy, Jay.

A card from the pile you will draw,

Put words together like a jigsaw.

So Jay and his friends, Jack, Jill, and Joy,

Started to play to win a fun toy.

They all picked words to make a train,

The words were alike, to make a looping chain.

Jill drew the word, jeep, and then looked around.

She found the word trip, without the same sound.

That doesn’t work, you must put trip back.

“Play fair or stop with this game,” said Jack.

“Oh Jack,” said the friends, “this is fine, don’t quit,

Words with these sounds are an affricate!” 

By Kathy Hart  

Standards Alignment:

NAEYC - 2.E.06

Head Start - VII. B & C.

School Readiness: Affricate Sort

Affricates - what are they? Here are objects with the four affricate sounds.

Jet, chick, truck, and dragon. 

These objects begin with the commonly confused letters j, ch, tr, and dr. As adults, we easily hear the difference between the sounds of these letters/letter combinations. But, for many children just beginning to write, these sounds are easily confused. Children have difficulty hearing the difference between (for example) the j sound and the dr sound, etc. This is often an issue for one-fourth to one-third of a kindergarten or first grade class. How can preschool teachers help?

We can provide easy object sorts for our young learners. For example, have children contrast the beginning sound of j using objects such as jam, jellybean, juice, jar, and jet with objects beginning with tr such as train, tractor, truck, triangle, etc. By asking children to separate (sort) these objects while saying their names, helps children to learn to say the sounds correctly and to begin to distinguish the difference in these phonemes. This is especially important for English Language Learners.    

Continue by comparing the known sound of j with the other affricates: dr and ch. Ideas for those objects include:

dr - 
dragon
dress
drum
dragonfly

ch - 
chick
chair
cherry
chopsticks
chocolate 

After contrasting j with dr and j with ch, then have children compare objects with the tr and ch sound. Continue on, adding 3 categories and finally all four until children can hear and correctly sort all of the objects. Many children easily hear the difference, some hear the sound differences after this type of practice, while other children will need more instruction using pictures of other j, tr, dr, and ch words.  

This may seem like a minor sound difference but it can cause big problems in school. So...help children hear the sound difference now.  

Standards Alignment:
NAEYC -  2.E.06 & 2.E.10.
Head Start -  VII.B. 1 & 3.

PowerPoint for Looking at the Dolch Words with a New Lens

I had a great time at the ILA Conference -so much to learn and think about for our children. I will be sharing many new ideas in the coming weeks and months. For now, I wanted to post my PowerPoint. At the link below you will also find the lists of Dolch words that are confusing as to sequence. Let me know your thoughts as you consider ways to reorganize the way in which we present these sight words.

You can see Kathy's PowerPoint from the ILA Conference by clicking below.

Click here for PowerPoint!

I had mentioned affricates at the session. For more information, take a look at this blog entry by clicking here - AFFRICATES. 

Then browse the blog for more information on teaching ELLs and other ways to present sight vocabulary.

I will have more suggestions soon so please check back.

Thanksgiving Thoughts

We may think we need more creative activities than just asking children to write on a leaf or turkey feather about the things for which they are thankful. But remember - these children have not done this for the past ten years - this activity is new to them. Do it the old-fashioned way 

or...

present these "old" activities with a facelift - include their thoughts using ChatterKids (click here to see this post) or even use Quiver 3D or Aurasma to make the time-held tradition of giving thanks come alive. 

Of course, you can easily create a bulletin board with these ideas, too. We believe it is best if children use invented spelling to share their ideas. This way you can easily see where they are on the phonics/spelling continuum. Drawing a picture can give you information, too. This often means the child does not feel confident enough to use letters. As a reminder, here are the first few stages of this important continuum:

Initial consonants

Final consonants 

Initial digraphs and blends (letter combinations like th, sh, bl, fr, tr.)

Short vowels (remember that short e is the most difficult)

Affricates (j, ch, tr, dr)

Final consonants blends and digraphs

We feel that if preschool children can correctly write the first consonant of a word, we are thrilled! 

And now for just a fun and eye-catching project, we suggest creating a turkey farm. Get some orange paper cups. These become the body of your turkey. Then use various colors of paper (red, brown, yellow) to make the tail feathers. You can pre-cut these tail feathers or have children practice their burgeoning fine motor skills by tracing and cutting a pattern. Have children make heads and perhaps “gobblers.” Fringe the tails and glue them to the mouth of the cup. Glue the head to the bottom of the cup. Then staple your 3D turkeys to a “field” on your bulletin board. It makes a fun display.