ShmoopTube

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[Dino and Coop singing]

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Today, we want to talk about baby talk.

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Don't worry, we won't talk about baby talk in baby talk. [Baby covered in feathers]

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That'd be super irritating and weird.

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We just mean that we want to talk about all of those sounds a baby makes before it knows [Baby with an adult face farts]

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any words.

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See, speaking starts with sounds – just like “goo-goo” and “ga-ga”––that

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we then use like building blocks to make words.

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We call this “phonics,” which is a term that describes the relationship between letters, [Coop pointing at a blackboard]

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sounds, and meaning.

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It's all about learning to recognize that certain letters have certain sounds, as well [Dino pointing at a blackboard]

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as learning to recognize that certain sounds are either soft or hard.

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Though we wouldn't recommend snuggling in bed with any sounds…let's leave that job [Girl looking scared in bed]

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to the teddy bears.

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Anyway, phonics isn't just about letter sounds –

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it's about the sounds of letter combinations, too!

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See, we've got our vowels... that's A, E, I, O and U.

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And we also have our consonants, that's B, C, D, F.... well…you get the picture.

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So while phonics allows us to recognize that an “L” makes a “luh” sound, it also

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allows us to recognize many common letter combinations, too. [Glass of lemonade]

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Like how an “l-d” sounds like “uhld” as in “old.”

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And “l-t” sounds like “uhlt” as in “bolt.”

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And “m-p” sounds like “uhmp” as in “lamp.”

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Sometimes, letter combinations can sound differently depending on the word. [Dino pointing at a blackboard]

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For example, “c-h” sounds hard in words like “Chief” and “Choose” but sounds

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soft in words like “choir” and “character.”

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“S-c” also has both a hard and soft sound, like “scary” and “scold” versus

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“science” and “scenic.”

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Phonics also helps us to remember those so-weird-they-barely-make-any-sense sounds, [Coop pointing at a blackboard]

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like how “p-h” actually makes

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a “fff” sound like in “phone” and “phonetics.”

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English is a wacky, wacky language. [Woman wearing a weird joker style costume]

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But on the bright side, once you've practiced reading and using all of these sounds, you'll [Man reading in a classroom]

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be able to decode and learn more and more difficult words in a jiffy!

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In other words, reading is entirely built on these very basic sounds.

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All thanks to phonics!

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So get crackin', and pretty soon, words like this will be easy as pie… [List of long words]

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Just…don't ask us to pronounce any of those… [Guy holding pies]

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seriously, an "s" and a "g"? [The word sgraffito]

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That's even worse than the whole "p-h" debacle.

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