I was taught that the schwa was the sound that many of the vowels take when occurring in certain syllables of certain words--I always viewed the schwa as a a sort of generic vowel sound.  As a high school teacher, I am finding that few students have any understanding of the schwa, which makes me wonder how they use dictionaries for pronunciation help.  When they see it, they don't recognize it's assistance in pronunciation.  Elementary teachers, is the schwa still taught as a part of phonetics?

Rebecca Watson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:  
    On Jun 24, 2006, at 5:19 AM, Edmond Wright wrote:

    The schwa is the phoneme that very many vowel sounds in unstressed positions
  tend to gravitate to, hence its being the most common phoneme


  As one who was taught phonics but not serious grammar, we tikes were told that that was the short sound of the individual vowels.  Yes?  No?
  

  Rebecca
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