Cards - hard and soft consonants

In continuation of the post “How to teach a child to read by syllables? Making words from syllables,” I offer you new material - cards with hard and soft consonant sounds.

Use the cards to teach your child to determine when consonants are soft and when they are hard.

Blue - solid
Green - soft

Consonant sounds can be soft or hard. For example, in the word “world” you hear a soft consonant zyuk [m”], and in the word “poppy” you hear a hard consonant sound [m]. The softness of a consonant is indicated by adding the symbol “to its notation, for example: [m"].

Remember:
Always soft sounds: [th’], [h’], [sh’].
Always hard sounds: [zh], [sh], [ts].

The remaining sounds are soft if they are immediately followed by the vowels e, ё, i, yu, я or ь, and hard if they are followed by other vowels and consonants.

Hard and soft consonants differ in the position of the tongue.
When pronouncing soft consonants ([b"], [v"], [d"], [z"], etc.), the entire body of the tongue moves forward, and the middle part of the back of the tongue rises to the hard palate. This movement of the tongue is called palatalization. Palatalization is considered an additional articulation: it is superimposed on the main one associated with the formation of an obstruction.

When pronouncing hard consonants ([b], [v], [d], [z], etc.), the tongue does not move forward and its middle part does not rise.
Consonants form 15 pairs of sounds contrasting in hardness/softness. All of them are either hard doubles or soft doubles:
[b] - [b"]
[in] - [in"]
[g] - [g"]
[d] - [d"]
[z] - [z"]
[p] - [p"]
[f] - [f"]
[k] - [k"]
[t] - [t"]
[s] - [s"]
[mm"]
[n] - [n"]
[r] - [r"]
[l] - [l"]
[x] - [x"]

These cards are a more in-depth version of regular cards with syllables. Here, not only the vowels are highlighted in color (they are traditionally red), but also the consonants are divided by hardness/softness. Hard consonants are filled with blue, while soft consonants are filled with green.

These cards are designed for older children, as they involve teaching not only reading, but also sound-letter analysis.

To work with cards, you need to print them, cut them into squares along the lines and decorate them: stick them on a thick base or laminate them.

Hard and soft consonants B – V

Hard and soft consonant sounds G – D

Hard Z and hard and soft consonant sound Z

Hard and soft consonant sounds K – L

Hard and soft consonants M – N

Hard and soft consonant sounds P – R

Hard and soft consonants C – T

Hard and soft consonant sounds F – X

Hard and soft consonant sounds Ts – Ch

Hard and soft consonant sounds Ш – Ш

It is necessary to introduce children to the theory:
There are sounds that are always soft, and there are always hard sounds ([y’], [h’], [sch’] - [zh], [sh], [ts]). In other cases, the softness of the previous consonant is indicated either by the following vowels e, ё, i, yu, ya, or by a soft sign.

You can draw children's attention to how soft and hard consonants differ when pronounced. In the first case, the body of the tongue moves forward, plus the middle part of the back shifts towards the hard palate. When pronouncing hard consonants, this movement does not occur.

In addition to always hard/soft consonants, there are also paired consonants on this basis. These are the sounds [b] – [n] – [g] – [v] – [d] – [z] – [f] – [k] – [t] – [p] – [s] – [m] – [p] – [l] and [x].
Work with these cards, and your children will quickly master syllabic reading through play and make significant progress in learning the Russian language.

Find out what else a child at this age should know and be able to do.

Consonant sounds sound different in different words. Somewhere it’s hard, and somewhere it’s soft. In this lesson we will learn to distinguish between soft and hard consonant sounds and to indicate the softness of consonant sounds in writing with the letters I, E, E, Yu, I and b. Let's find out which consonants form hard-soft pairs, and which are only hard or only soft.

Compare the first consonants. When pronouncing the sound in the word KIT, the middle part of the tongue rises to the palate, the passage through which air flows narrows, and a sound is obtained, which scientists conventionally call soft. And the opposite sound was called - solid.

Let's complete the task. You need to put the vegetables in two baskets. In the first place we put those whose names contain some soft sounds, in the second those in whose names all consonant sounds are hard. Beets, turnips, eggplant, cabbage, onions, tomatoes, onions, pumpkin, cucumber.

Let's check. In the first basket we put: beets(sound [v’]), turnip(sound [r’]), tomato(sound [m’]),cucumber(sound [r’]). Second: cabbage, pumpkin, eggplant, onion .

It is important to listen to the sounds of spoken words. If you say the word NOS otherwise - with a hard first sound, we get a completely different word - NOSE.

Let's listen and watch the movement of our tongue:

row - sound [p’] - rad - sound [p]

hatch - sound [l’] - bow - sound [l]

Rice. 3. Bow ( )

crumpled - sound [m’] - small - sound [m]

Sounds can be written (conventionally) using icons. Musical sounds are written in notes, and speech sounds are written in letters, but in special square brackets - in transcription. In order not to confuse hard and soft sounds when reading the transcription, scientists agreed to show the softness of the sound with an icon very similar to a comma, only they put it on top.

Most consonant sounds form pairs based on softness and hardness:

Some consonants are only hard or only soft. They do not form pairs in terms of hardness/softness:

Only hard consonants: [zh], [w], [ts]. Only soft consonants: [th’], [h’], [sch’].

Let's complete the task: indicate the paired sound.

[z] - ? [and] - ? [R'] - ? [h’] - ? [With'] - ? [l] - ? Let’s check the correctness of the task: [z] - [z’]; [r’] - [r]; [s’] - [s]; [l] - [l’]. [zh], [h’] - unpaired sounds in terms of softness and hardness.

In writing, the hardness of consonant sounds is indicated by the vowels A, O, U, Y, E, and the softness of consonant sounds is indicated by the vowels E, Yo, I, Yu, Ya.

There are words with soft consonant sounds at the end of words or in the middle of words before other consonant sounds. Listen to the words: salt, horse, notebook, coat, ring, letter. Then a soft sign will come to the rescue. Even his name suggests - a sign soft, for soft consonants.

Let's make a reminder of how to act when writing words:

I hear a hard consonant sound - after it I write the letters in place of the vowel sound: A, O, U, Y, E.

I hear a soft consonant sound before a vowel sound - I indicate its softness with vowels: E, Yo, I, Yu, Ya.

I hear a soft sound at the end of a word or before a consonant sound - I show softness b.

Rice. 5. Hard and soft consonants ()

So, today we learned that consonant sounds can be soft and hard, and the softness of consonant sounds in writing in Russian is indicated by the letters i, e, e, yu, i and ь.

1. Andrianova T.M., Ilyukhina V.A. Russian language 1. M.: Astrel, 2011. ().
2. Buneev R.N., Buneeva E.V., Pronina O.V. Russian language 1. M.: Ballas. ()
3. Agarkova N.G., Agarkov Yu.A. Textbook for teaching literacy and reading: ABC. Academic book/textbook.

Additional web resources

1. Hypermarket of knowledge ()
2. Russian language: short theoretical course. ()
3. Logosauria: site for children's computer games. ()

Make it at home

1. Andrianova T.M., Ilyukhina V.A. Russian language 1. M.: Astrel, 2011. Pp. 35, ex. 6, Page 36, ex. 3.
2. Count how many soft consonants are in a word train? (The word electric train has 3 soft consonant sounds ([l’], [r’], [h’]).
3. Using the knowledge gained in the lesson, make up puzzles or charades with words where the softness and hardness of a sound changes the meaning.

Consonants can be soft or hard. For example, in the word “hand” we hear hard consonant[r], and in the word "river" - soft. On softness of consonants may influence vowels and soft sign. In the word "chalk" consonant[l] sounds hard, but in the word “stranded” it sounds soft.

Softness of a consonant is indicated by adding the symbol to its notation " , for example: [p"].

How to distinguish a soft consonant from a hard one? When pronouncing soft consonant sound the tongue rises more to the palate and narrows the passage through which the air flows than when pronouncing hard consonant. For example, in the word “break”, when pronouncing the first consonant sound [r"], the air passes through a narrower gap than when pronouncing the second consonant sound [r].

Always soft sounds: [th’], [h’], [sh’].

Always hard sounds: [zh], [sh], [ts].

Other sounds are soft, if they are immediately followed vowels e, e, i, yu, i or b, And hard, if they are followed by other vowels and consonants.

TEST YOURSELF

However, these rules There are exceptions:

1) Consonants sounds [z], [s] can be softened before soft [n’], [d’], [t’], for example: “grasshopper”, “finch”, “to lead”, “everywhere”.

2) In some foreign words included in the Russian language, the consonant sound is pronounced firmly, but after the letter denoting it, It's still written e, not e as one hears. For example, in the words: “computer”, “test”, “tempo”.

When spoken voiced consonants the air flow creates vibrations of the vocal cords. If the vocal cords are not used, then the sound is considered deaf.

But in Russian, a voiced letter does not always denote a voiced sound (and vice versa: a voiceless consonant does not always denote a voiceless sound). It depends on the position of the letter in the word.

Voiced consonant often stunned at the end of a word. For example, in the word “colander” we read “k” at the end, because the sound is in a weak position. Can also be stunned before a voiceless consonant. For example, we pronounce the word “gait” as “plowing”.

To determine which letter will be written correctly, the letter must be placed in a strong position in a word with the same root (that is, before the vowel or consonants M, L, N, R).

For example: “boat” - “boat”, “mushroom” - “mushroom”.

Table

Also paired in deafness/voicing are pairs of soft consonants from those indicated in the table. For example: “b’ - p’”, “v’ - f’”.

Hard and soft

In words, the same letter can represent both hard and soft sounds. This is due to the influence of subsequent consonants on softness/hardness. Hard consonants sound before A, O, U, Y, E, soft consonants sound before I, E, Yo, Yu, I.

Table