[IAEP] [Sugar-devel] sounds in Speak

[K. K. Subramaniam]

On Monday 14 December 2009 09:00:23 pm Aleksey Lim wrote:
> > Hello everybody,
> > 
> > This afternoon, I had an interesting conversation with a Montessori
> > teacher, about Speak. She asked me why Speak says "a" when "a" is pressed
> > and not the sound of the letter "a". Montessori teachers teach the shape
> > and sound of letters first, and then the name of the alphabet. I did not
> > have an answer for her, but I wondered if it would be possible to have an
> > option in Speak to do so.
> 
> not sure it could be done in existed Speak(it just passes string to
> speak engine). But it could separate activity or mode in Speak which
> teaches alphabet.
Isn't Speak an overkill for such basic lessons?

Montessori teachers would find Scratch or EToys useful for such exercises. They 
can prepare a list of words and record their associated 'a' sounds. Script 
word objects to respond with the appropriate sound when letter 'a' is dropped 
on them (or the 'a' key is pressed with the mouse hovering over a word) . This 
puts more control on the quality of pronunciation in the hands of teachers.

Subbu