So many multisyllabic words that have the silent e, will actually have the schwa sound! What?!! The last word brings up a whole new discussion…schwa sounds with words that have a magic e/silent e. Schwas are so fun to teach! My students love when I say the word incorrectly first, then they correct it with the SCHWA! Here are some examples of ANY vowel being a schwa… It isn’t…SAL-ADD, it is “SAL-ID”.ĭid you see how you didn’t follow typical phonics rules with the closed syllable being a short vowel sound, instead it turned into the schwa!

It just turns into a lazy sound, not as pronounced. See below how the schwa symbol is being used.Īny vowel can be the schwa sound. This symbol will be placed right on top of the vowel that is making the lazy sound. Let’s just say the e is taking a rest, so the symbol represents the lazy, unstressed, vowel sound. Let’s change that! Go ahead…teach the SCHWA…the kids love it and it makes perfect sense! As I teach small reading intervention groups, this is always a lesson that sticks and the schwa sound occurs ALL OF THE TIME! Many teachers have not explicitly taught a “SCHWA” lesson, instead just mentioning the vowel sound changes in many words. It takes very little effort for our mouth to say “uh”.” The schwa sound is a shorter than short vowel sound or a lazy vowel. Any written vowel can have the schwa sound, or to put it another way, the schwa sound can be spelled with any vowel. It is actually the most common sound in English. According to, The Literacy Nest, “Schwa is most simply defined as the sound a vowel makes in an unaccented syllable.

What is a schwa