Tesl Times - teaching plural sounds

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Teaching /S/ /Z/ & /EZ/ Word Endings
Thus far we've covered the word endings that take /s/ and those taking /z/, but what about the final group - the ones that take /ez/ ?

The lesson concludes...

As /s/ and /z/ are column headings unto themselves, they can't go into our two existing columns, so words ending with these two sounds take /ez/.

Begin by writing the word misses to the right of the words for /b/, and asking students which sound they hear, [/S/ /Z/ or /EZ/].

Delete the [es], ask which sound they hear at the end of the word, and write the letter /s/ to the left of the word miss. As before, ask for other words that end with an /s/ sound, [ex: house, dress, dance,...] and write them down. Note: The /s/ sound can be spelled with a /c/.

Repeat the process for words ending in a /z/ sound like prize, noise, lose,.... Note the spelling.

From these examples we can know that words that end in an /s/ or /z/ sound become /ez/.

This leaves just four remaining sounds to complete the /ez/ column. The first two are formed by consonant clusters:

/sh/ as in wash, brush, push....
/ch/ as in watch, catch, match....

The last two are:

/j/ which is usually spelled with a [ge] as in change, edge, message,....
/x/ as in box, fix, fox,....

Table of S-endings

Back to... [s] ending page two

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page last modified: October 29, 2015