You Learn Phonics Rules and Pronunciation Patterns to Understand and Remember the Pronunciation

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1. Realize that a English letter can have different sounds.
In English, a letter can have different sounds. For example, the letter A can be pronounced as the long A sound, the short A sound, the schwa sound, the short E sound, and the short O sound. It is highly recommended that go the Alphabet page and click each letter to learn how many sounds each letter can have. (Note: You don't need to memorize them right away because you will learn them when you learn each English sound.)
2. Learn the major rules and patterns for the sounds.
About sixty percent of English pronunciation can be learned through major rules and patterns. Here is the most important rule, the silent E rule which states that the letter E at the end of a word makes the vowel in front of it say its alphabet name. For example, because the words make, cake, take, fake, snake, etc are ending with the letter E, it makes the letter a in the word say as the long A sound which is the alphabet name.

To access the major rules and patterns for each sound, you just need to click the sound and then click the Major tab in the Online Tutorial page. You can practice the words following the patterns by clicking the pattern link.

You also can go to the Rule page and choose the rules to learn and practice the words according to the rules.
3. Learn the minor rules and patterns for the sounds.
About twenty percent of English pronunciation can be learned through minor rules and patterns. To access the minor rules and patterns for each sound, you just need to click the sound and then click the Minor tab in the Online Tutorial page. You can practice the words following the patterns by clicking the pattern link.
4. Learn the exceptions or sight words for the sounds.
About the remaining twenty percent of English pronunciation has to be memorized without any patterns and rules. To access the sight words for each sound, you just need to click the sound and then click the Exceptions tab in the Online Tutorial page. You can practice the words by clicking the pattern link.
Useful Information
1. If you are a rule based learner or a math-inclined learner, pronunciation patterns is the perfect tool for you to help you learn English pronunciation. We recommend you to go the rules page and go through the all the rules in the program first.
2. In Pronunciation Patterns, all the rules are categorized as the silent rules, the double consonant rules, the two vowel rules, and the ending rules. To access the rules, you just need to click Rules page and go through each rule and read the rule information at the tip page.
3. Pronunciation Patterns recommends APA because all the phonics rules and pronunciation patterns are based on APA. All the online phonetic representation are written in APA.
4. In the next chapter, you will learn how to practice the words by following the rules.