What kinds of produce does a farmer produce?
Does your Polish sausage taste like nail polish?
Learning to read in English is not a simple process for anyone - native and non-native speakers alike. The writing system used for English is <em>opaque</em> - the pronunciation of letters and combinations of letters is not always predictable. Furthermore, there are no patterns that help predict where the stress will fall in any given word. Ordinarily, a combination of phonics, whole word memorization (“sight words”), and word etymology is used to gain fluency in reading.
For this reason, exams such as the TOEIC (Test of English for International Communication) are wise to ask test takers to read a text out loud. Examiners want to find out not only what they know, but what they can produce. Evaluation scores are based upon the student's pronunciation and intonation.
To help students prepare for these types of challenges I have created a series called ‘Out Loud’ and covers 5 important vowel sounds in English. You can sample the materials with a bonus vowel sound at:
