Gulping Gary’s Sound
Below you will find BONUS ACTIVITIES that come with your purchase of The Speech Sound Set Alphabet Cards.
Note that in this series, only lower-case non-cursive letters are included. Lower-case letters are certainly more difficult to write than capitals, but this resource is about exposing children to the look of the letters that they will be seeing in the sentences of their ‘readers’ (books) when they begin formal schooling.
Buy The Speech Sound Set Alphabet CardsAbout the Sound
This sound is a loud, quick sound.
Sound Pair. A sound pair is another sound that is made in the same way – only one of the pairs is LOUD (uses voice) and the other is SOFT (uses no voice, is whispered). Not all sounds have a pair. When a sound is involved with a speech error, often (but not always) the Sound Pair will also be involved in the same speech error.
The sounds of Gulping Gary (loud) and Cara Kookaburra (soft) are Sound Pairs.
When it develops
This sound can appear very early in a baby’s cooing and gooing, but then disappears when the baby starts sitting. This is because the tongue is no longer resting in the back of the baby’s mouth. This sound is usually used correctly in words soon after a child turns 3 years of age.
How it is made
Tip your head back like Gulping Gary and make a short, loud gulp sound in the back of your mouth. Your tongue tip should stay pinned down at the front and the back of your tongue should raise up.
Tips to Help
This sound is made in the back of the mouth with the tongue tip staying down and the back of the tongue rising up to make contact with the roof of the mouth. You can see this if you look carefully at Gary’s tongue. Tipping the head back can sometimes help a child’s tongue fall into the right position for making this sound. For this reason, Gulping Gary’s head is tipped back in the picture. Another tip is for the child to try and hold their tongue down at the front with an icypole stick while raising the back of the tongue.
Common Errors
Remember, some speech sound errors are perfectly NORMAL as a child progresses in their speech development.
1. It is a common early error for children to say the /d/ sound instead of the /g/ sound in words. Examples are a child saying “all don” for “all gone” and “dough away” for “go away”. This error is called VELAR FRONTING. It simply means the loud, quick sound that should be made at the back of the mouth (/g/) is produced as a loud, quick sound at the front of the mouth (/d/). A child usually “grows out” of this error by the age of 4 years. Note that when a child has VELAR FRONTING, you will also notice the error with the way they try and say the /k/ sound. /k/ being a soft, quick sound that is made at the back is produced as a soft, quick sound at the front of the mouth, /t/. In this case, a child will say “tar” for “car.”
About the Letter
The lower-case letter used in this set is the non-cursive letter g. Non-cursive is what is most often seen in text and in the world around a child, so we encourage all written text to be presented in non-cursive in the preschool setting.
This letter starts with the Curly Cat shape (See Cara Kookaburra’s page).
The letter’s name is pronounced “jee”. For this reason, some children think this letter goes with the /j/ sound (Jumping Jemma’s). Even though this letter DOES represent Jumping Jemma’s sound in words like “giant” and “gel”, it is not the first letter-sound link we teach when it comes to this letter. Let’s stick with the letter g (jee) going with Gulping Gary’s sound.
Activities
Colour-In
1. Learners can be shown how to form the letter, starting at the star. If there are two possible ways the writer could head with their pencil (or crayon), they should head towards the smaller star next. Try and give consistent instructions when you show a child how to form the letter. E.g. “Here’s how we do the letter g… Start with Curly Cat , up, down and under”. 2. Children can practise again and again within the outline. Using different colours can make it more fun. Encourage children to say the SOUND as they trace the letter. 3. Together look at the pictures, name each and LISTEN for the first sound of each word. It will begin with the target sound. 4. You can point to the first letter in each word. Name the letter.
Picture Cards
Each picture begins with the target sound. You can print these out and make cards or just look at them on a device.
1) Cards can be used for these for a range of games such as SNAP, BINGO or MEMORY.
2) Start a double-spread page in a scrapbook for each sound. Paste in the colour-in (above), practise writing the letter and cut out and paste the pictures on the pages.
3) Combine them with another set from a different sound and do a SORTING ACTIVITY.
4)Make a poster for each sound and paste on the corresponding pictures.
Find The Letter
View the download on a digital device and point to the target letters or print out and circle/ underline the letters. Try and encourage scanning of left to right of each line while looking for letters. Start by saying “Let’s look for all the g letters”. When you find them, say the sound as you point/circle/underline.