In this task, students will learn the sound /w/ as in swine.
This is the first time that students review letters in a regular serif font without seeing them change, one at a time, from the special orthography first.
This is also the first time that students read letters in the serif font that are different from the sounds that they just reviewed in the special orthography earlier in the task. In this case, the last two sounds that they review in the specialized orthography are /ā/ and /ō/, but the last two letters that they review in the serif font are f and i.
We will never expect students to read a serif letter as a long vowel sound when the letters are presented in isolation like this. Because there are no macrons (lines above the vowels) in a regular font, students should read the more common short vowel sound whenever they see a serif vowel in isolation.
This task returns to students saying a word slowly after you say it only the fast way. The words in these Slow Game tasks will continue to develop in complexity for the next 17 cycles.
Remember, you can encourage students to count sounds on their fingers as they say a word slowly (but you don’t have to correct students for not counting sounds if they say the word slowly correctly), and, in this type of task, students are allowed to (but aren’t required to) pause between the sounds.
