About this activity
Twelve words ending in /z/: buzz, cheese, nose, rose, eyes, keys, bees, maze, size, hose, please, toes. Most of them are spelled with an s rather than a z, which is worth saying — the target is judged by sound and not by letter, and eyes, keys, bees and toes all end in /z/ with an s on the page.
How to use it in a session
Put a hand on the throat. /z/ and /s/ are made identically apart from the voicing, and feeling the buzz is far more reliable than hearing it. Hold the final sound in your model — buzzzz — since a word-final /z/ is quiet and easily devoiced. Six minutes covers the twelve.
What to listen for
Listen for devoicing, which is the standard error: the placement is right and the voice goes off, turning cheese into cheece. It is also a normal feature of connected speech in many accents at the end of an utterance, so context matters before calling it an error. Watch please and size, where the /z/ follows a long vowel and is at its quietest.
Carrying it home
Cheese, keys, nose and eyes are ordinary words. The throat cue works anywhere and children find it interesting, which makes /z/ one of the easier sounds to practise at home.
Questions
- What grades is this for?
- First through fourth grade.
- Is it free?
- Yes, all twelve cards play with no account and no card.
- Why are most of these spelled with an s?
- Because English uses s for both /s/ and /z/ at the end of a word. The target here is the sound rather than the letter, which is why eyes and keys belong in a /z/ deck.