phonemes

[ELAINEBROWN]

my son who is 9yrs old has been given phonemes for homework, what are phonemes?
some of the words he has been given are
memorise
purify
invention
terrorise
can anybody help me, help him to break these words down into phonemes
thanks

[Scylax]

Phonemes are the individual sounds we use
to make a language. There are 45 such sounds
in the English language, but other languages
have as many as 85.

Each single vowel and consonant in the alphabet
is a phoneme. In addition some letters have 2
sounds; the 'o' in 'hop' is a phoneme, and the 'o'
in 'hope' sounds different, so it is another phoneme.

The word 'purify' begins with a 'p' sound (a solitary
phoneme) but the 'u' letter could be pronounced
as in 'cute' or as in 'but' - two separate phonemes.

Some sounds can only be made by combining two
letters; 'sh' or 'th' for example, so each is a
phoneme.

The Welsh 'll' is a phoneme in the Welsh language,
but not in English. In Spanish, 'c' can be sounded
as in 'cat', but also as 'th' (cinco is pronounced as
'thinko' = five).

It's all a matter of knowing how letters sound in
each different language.

Thank heaven your boy is not learning Polish......

[bird_81]

We have just had extensive training in the Ruth Miskin programme which relies heavily on phomemes. This website may help.
http://www.ruthmiskinliteracy.com/