Do you hear it?

What Do you hear it? practices

Do you hear it? asks whether one sound is inside a spoken word: “Do you hear /a/ in cat?” Most of the questions are about the middle of the word, where the short vowel sits, which is the part young readers most often skip.

The target sound is also shown as a letter or letter group. The pictured word is revealed in print after the answer. Your child can listen and choose Yes or No without reading the whole word first.

Who it suits

Children ready to listen for a named sound within a familiar word. Try a round together, name an unfamiliar picture and model the Yes or No choice. If the question is unclear, pause and say the word together before continuing.

How a round goes

Your child looks at the picture, listens to the whole question and taps Yes or No. The word itself is not printed until after the answer. A first wrong answer brings a cheerful “Listen again” and the word is said once more.

A second miss reveals the answer, with the word split into its sounds and the matching letters lit up, so every round ends with your child seeing exactly where the sound was. A ring of five rounds takes about two minutes.

A tip for home

Try the same question out loud with family names: “Do you hear /m/ in Mom? In Dad?” Then ask about the middle: “Do you hear /a/ in Dad?” Short, silly rounds at dinner keep the vowel in focus without any pencils.

Try next

• Sound Sort — practices the start and end positions with a whole board of pictures.
• Same or Different? — listens for the one sound that separates two words.
• Build the Word — turns careful listening into spelling every sound of a word.
• First Sound — listens for the very first sound of a word, with one picture to choose.

More from “Listening for sounds”

• Clap the Parts — Clap the beats in a spoken word.

Read more

How to teach blending, step by step: why hearing the sounds in spoken words comes before blending them with letters.