Looking for some Schwa Sound Printables for your learners? Look no further!
Schwa can be a super tricky sound to identify, even for learners who don’t struggle with your typical phonics skills.
If you need any tips, be sure to visit our post: helping learners readers identify accented {and unaccented} syllables.
*The free download can be found at the end of this post. Just look for and click on the teal download button.
What is the Schwa Sound?
I think this sound in English is one of the hardest sounds because it’s so ambiguous. Here are some things I do know about schwa:
- It is almost always found in unaccented words or syllables. An unaccented word example would include words like of or the. Unaccented syllables are syllables that are not emphasized or stressed in words. For help locating them, this post is super helpful.
- It is a relaxed {or “lazy”} sound and sounds like short u. Sometimes the two sounds are confused. The key difference I see is that schwa is usually found in unaccented words or syllables, not accented.
- It can be represented by every vowel and even some vowel combinations. The schwa vowels are bold in these examples: away, elephant, uniform, occur, upon, fiction, vinyl, bargain
- It is sometimes easy to identify. {Yay for easy!} There are some common word patterns with schwa. Words like away, again, about, above, and afford all start with the unaccented a, which makes the schwa sound. Words that end with el, al, and le often end with schwa. Here are a few examples of this one: little, camel, pedal, and middle. There are other word patterns, too, so be sure to point them out to your learners when you discover them together!
- Schwa is often notated by the upside down e sign:
Schwa Sound Printables
Now that we’ve defined the term and given a few examples, let’s take a quick peek at the freebies!*
*Please note: Before publishing this printable, all my words were double-checked via the dictionary to make sure they contained a true schwa sound. Because of this, some words that appear on the sorts and game boards in the following images were removed and replaced with other words.
This free pack has two different activities included. First, there are FOUR DIFFERENT schwa sound sorts like you see below.
Learners should read the words in the word bank and listen for the vowel sound from the underlined vowel(s) in the word. If it’s schwa, they should write the word in the chart under “Sounds like Schwa.” If it’s not schwa, they should write the word in the chart under the heading, “Not Schwa.”
To make these sorts a little on the self-checking side, EIGHT words {and eight words only} fit in each column.
Secondly, the pack has TWO DIFFERENT “Get a Row of 4” game boards. This game is for two players. Each player needs a different colored counter.
Players take turns reading the words and telling where the unaccented schwa sound is. If the other player agrees that the word was read correctly and the schwa sound was identified correctly, he/she can place their color counter on top of the word.
The goal, of course, is to get a row of 4 and you win! Clear the board and play again. Learners can also choose to play using the other game board found in the pack.
Unsure of the answers? I’ve included answer keys for every single page in this freebie. 🙂 They can all be found starting on page 11 of the pack.
Remember, to read the post Helping Learners Identify Accented Syllables. It has tips for recognizing accented and unaccented syllables!
Download the free pack below:
Enjoy teaching!
~Becky
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