Consonants All Around

In the last lesson you met the five vowels. Now let’s meet the rest of the alphabet: the consonants. There are many more consonants than vowels, and they help give every word its shape.

What is a consonant?

A consonant is any letter that is not a vowel. Remember the vowels: a, e, i, o, u. All the other letters are consonants.

b c d f g h j k l m n p q r s t v w x y z

That makes 21 consonants. (Remember, y is a consonant most of the time, like in yellow.)

Consonants and vowels work together

Most words have both. In dog, the d and g are consonants and the o is a vowel. In map, the m and p are consonants and the a is a vowel.

Beginning and ending sounds

Consonants are often at the start and end of short words. Listen carefully to both ends.

Stretch the word

To hear every sound, stretch the word like a rubber band. Say s-u-n very slowly. Then snap it back together: sun!

Sound buddies

Some consonants like to team up and make one new sound. You will learn more about these later, but here are two fun ones:

• sh says /sh/, like ship and fish (the “be quiet” sound)
• ch says /ch/, like chip and lunch (the train sound “choo choo”)

Example

Zara was eating lunch. She said, “Lunch ends with the train sound, /ch/!” Then she found chips on her plate. “Chips starts with /ch/ too!”

Key takeaways

• Consonants are all the letters that are not vowels.
• There are 21 consonants in the English alphabet.
• Short words often have consonants at the beginning and end.
• Some consonants team up, like sh and ch.

Practice

Say each word slowly. Tell a grown-up the ending sound: cat, ball, bed, frog, bus.

Answers: cat ends with /t/, ball with /l/, bed with /d/, frog with /g/, and bus with /s/.