Schwa Happens
What is schwa you ask?
Well….I’ll tell you.
A schwa is an empty vowel in an unaccented syllable within a word.
Huh?
Ok…ummmm…lemme try again.
A schwa is a vowel that doesn’t make the sound it is expected to inside a word.
This makes the words they are included in both hard to sound out and hard to spell….especially for those just learning, or struggling, to read and write.
Here is a simple example: Alive
The A makes the “uh” sound not a typical long or short A sound.
Weird right?
Let’s try another one: Circuit
The U is completely silent. Sadly for the U it has lost its voice and says nothing.
Which seems fitting since the term “schwa” comes from a Hebrew word meaning “empty”.
Shwas are confusing. They are random, unexpected, and only follow one rule which is: they only appear in unaccented syllables. (Meaning…that the only rule they do follow is also confusing….good times.)
So why am I talking about complicated rules of english vowel phoneme articulation???
Because last week as I was sitting in a class designed to help teachers become better reading teachers schwas became real, tangible forces to be reckoned with.
As I have mentioned this year I added Resource Reading classes to my teaching schedule at the local junior high school. I love teaching Reading…almost as much as I love teaching art….but it can be tricky.
My kids struggle with reading. They figure out a pattern, a rule, how to motor through the complex system of identifying a letter, the sound that letter makes, and then the sound that letter makes with a group of other letters.
And then BOOM….here comes a pile of exceptions like:
I before E except after C….sometimes…kind of….but what about weigh and weird???
OR
That when 2 vowels go out walking the first one does the talking…usually….except of course in words like wood or audio…or about a hundred others…
It’s hard.
Letters can be unpredictable…especially when they are influenced by the other letters surrounding them.
The only way to learn how to read is to muddle through…to practice…to try…to ask for help…and often to run across the same word over and over again until you finally just plain old memorize what word that group of letters makes.
It takes time and isn’t an exact science.
Just like parenthood and teaching and adulting and life.
I think I have something down…my job, how to help my kids, my morning routine, my hair (ok…I have never figured out my hair), relationships, finances, household chores, etc etc etc…and then…
Schwa happens.
A family member with a mental health crisis.
Children who old enough to make their own choices…and make choices that we wouldn’t choose for them.
A car accident.
An illness.
A new puppy.
A broken wrist.
The loss of a loved one.
A change of employment.
Gaining 15 pounds while sitting on the couch watching True Crime documentaries and eating Peanut Butter Chocolate Pies from Costco…and then needing to buy new, larger sized, stretchy pants…also from Costco.
Ok….that last one is oddly specific…to me…but you get the picture.
Schwa happens.
We will all run across that words we don’t understand in the book of life.
The ones we didn’t expect…where the letters don’t follow the rules…and simply don’t sound right.
The ones we can’t sound out. The ones we have to struggle getting through. The ones we may have to ask for help to understand.
The ones that seem to come over and over again in waves that we just have to learn to navigate.
Because schwa happens.
And, like the Hebrew meaning I mentioned earlier, can leave us feeling “empty” as well.
And as much as I wish it wasn’t…this is normal.
This happens.
Schwa happens.
BUT…even when you are lost, or tired, or sad, or lonely, or mad as hell….
…keep reading!!!!!!
Keep trying, keep showing up, ask for help….yell, cry, curl up in a ball and binge listen to an entire season of a podcast while eating a tray of brownies while you should be speaking at a meeting….take the time you need…do whatever it takes.
Just don’t close the book.
Eventually you will be able to turn the page and find out what comes next…
….and you won’t be empty for ever.
(Even if it feels like it.)
-liZ
