What sound does the letter ‘o’ make? It may seem like a simple question at first, but just look at the ‘o’s in this paragraph, and you’ll notice: the letter ‘o’ loves to multitask. This video illustrates the problem succinctly.

Most of us have been taught that ‘o’ has only two sounds: ‘short’ o (as on off) and ‘long’ o (as in so). However, listening to the words to, of, woman, women, and wowtell a story that begs for more characters: long and short just don’t suffice.

“Phonics focuses on finding rules for pronouncing a letter. What’s missing from phonics is a strategy for being aware of a particular sound and developing an intuition for different ways of spelling it,” explains Dr. Robin Barr, Linguist In Residence at American University.

The Color Vowel Chart solves that problem by taking a sound-based approach. Assigning a color name to each vowel sound in English, off is OLIVE, so is ROSE, to is BLUE, of is MUSTARD, woman is WOODEN, and women is SILVER.

With the Color Vowel Chart serving as a foundation for phonemic awareness, we created a game: Color it out!   Featuring high-frequency words and sight words, Color Vowel™ Duo sets the stage for speaking practice and meaningful repetition for improved reading and pronunciation. This game-changing game is fun and accessible for all ages and stages.

Learn more!

• Watch our video about Color it out!
• Download the game instructions for Color it out!
• Purchase Color it out! for your classroom.