This sound is /y/, as in the word 'yes.' The letter 'y' regularly makes one consonant sound and three vowel sounds. It can be /ĭ/ in the middle of a word like 'system,' /ē/ at the end of a word like 'party,' and /ī/ at the end of some verbs and all single-syllable words like 'fly.' But it only makes one consonant sound, and that’s the sound that’s represented here, like in the word 'yes.' It is a continuous sound. When you hold it, you may feel like you are saying something close to /ēēē/, and that's fine. As with all other consonant sounds, be careful not to add a vowel sound after it. It should be /yyy/, not /yyyŭh/. The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) represents this phoneme with the following symbol: j. In the early stages of the curriculum, Once’s instructional content represents the sound with a symbol that is made by typing ‘y’ in a specialized font. This specialized orthography helps beginning readers (pre-kindergarten students through early elementary grades) learn letter-sound correspondence more quickly. By the middle stages of the curriculum, the specialized orthography is phased out and replaced by letters in a serif font.

Back to all phonemes