COLOUR CODES

Within the 16 different sound groups in the Sounds Database, we've aimed to colour-code words for some degree of identification, using the colours in the table below.

Broadly speaking, all words [excluding slang, proper nouns, specialist and discontinued words] have been classified as follows:

a 7-year-old should be familiar with most of the words in the "basic" category [black];

an educated 11-year-old should be able to *use* most or all of the words in the "basic" category with relative confidence,
and be reasonably familiar with a percentage of words in the "advanced" category [blue];

a well-educated 16-year-old should be able to *use* most or all of the words in the "advanced" category with relative confidence.

advanced	basic	common	discontinued	proper nouns	specialist
blue	black	green	brown	purple	grey
"well-educated" usage	everyday usage	casual usage / slang	rarely used nowadays	people, places, etc.	specialist/erudite words

SOUND GROUPS

The following "sounds guide" gives a broad idea of the basic vowel sound for each group. Words like "wood" and "moo" are both in the OO category, though in many areas of England "wood" is pronounced with a shorter vowel sound than "moo".

Single-syllable words are probably best to use initially for the blank templates, ones which end in the same type of sound (eg wait, weight, late, gate, etc.).

It should be noted also that all words in the "ayr" category have a vowel sound like that in "Mary" (like the noise a sheep makes!) rather than that in "day". This is the traditional "English" pronunciation (of the sort that the BBC might be expected to use) rather than "American" pronunciation.

sound group

AR

AH

AY

EH

EE

IH

OE

OH

OO

UH

YU

IY

AW

ER

OW

OI

vowel sound as in

star

cat

day

wet

tree

will

go

pod

too

fun

cube

byte

form

tern

loud

oil

DEDICATED TEMPLATES - all seven templates are now on line

The seven boxes in this table link to "template" pages for specific purposes - poem writing, MC lyrics, compiling crosswords and lateral thinking - these are "ready to go" and you can access any of them for printing and photocopying - these can be used with any of the sound groups or sub-groups.

Poem Writing

Word Base 1

Word Base 2

Making Crosswords

Lateral Thinking 1

Lateral Thinking 2

MC Lyrics

BLANK TEMPLATES - all five new templates are now on line

The words in the Sounds Database have recently been streamlined considerably, to identify wherever possible the variables of spelling and pronunciation within the separate sound sub-groups, and to make it easier to select specifically-relevant worksheets.

Should you wish to create your own worksheets (for example to exclude place names, or slang, or to add other rhyming words in, say, the "basic" category) we have prepared some "blank templates" for your use. Ideally all the words selected for inclusion on a "blank template" page should be from a single sub-group (eg AYayd, or YUyube, etc.), as this makes learning simpler and more logical and enables the child/student to focus primarily on the sound the word makes.

Links to the template pages now on line are given in the table below.

WRITING/COPYING	WORD SEARCH	DICTIONARY	USE IN SENTENCE	CROSSWORDS
Writing / Spelling	Word Search	Meaning	Use in Sentence	Crossword Clues

COMMENT (23rd February 2008)

The Sounds Database is now completed! and the 2500+ ready-made worksheets for this area have just gone on line.

All 489 sound files, which act as a pronunciation guide (eg for children learning English as a second language), are also in place and can be accessed from the various sub-group links on the Sounds Database itself.

We'd like to say a special thank-you to Mario Becroft in New Zealand, whose hard work over a very long period has made it possible for all the free SSM worksheets to be created.