Lesson 1 · Five vowels: А, О, У, Ы, И

For the parent — 15 minutes

Goal this week. Your child hears, says, recognises and writes the five vowel letters А, О, У, Ы, И. That is all. Russian children start here too: vowels first, because a vowel is a sound you can sing, and every syllable is built around one.

What to do.

1. Print Worksheet 1 (the attachment below). Write your child’s name and today’s date at the top right.
2. Open Listen and look below and play each letter once. Say it together, twice.
3. Do Learn and Practise on the screen — 5 minutes.
4. Your child completes the worksheet by hand — 5 minutes.
5. Press Check my answers in Check yourself, then compare the worksheet with the Answer key at the bottom of this page.

What “done” looks like. The worksheet is filled in, your child can point to each of the five letters when you say its sound, and can say the sound when you point to the letter. Speed does not matter.

You do not need to speak Russian. Every Russian word in these instructions has its pronunciation in brackets, like this: мама [MAH-ma].

Listen and look

Five letters, five sounds. Tap a letter to hear a Russian speaker say it.

Learn

Big and small. Each letter has a capital and a small form. For these five, the small letter is the capital made smaller: А а · О о · У у · Ы ы · И и.

Two look like English but are not. Russian А sounds like ah, never like the a in cat. Russian У looks like a y but sounds like oo. Say у — oo — and point at the letter, so the sound goes with the shape.

Ы never starts a word. You will meet it in the middle and at the end: мы (we), ты (you), сыр (cheese). For now, just hear it and say it.

The mouth. Look in a mirror together: а — mouth wide open; о — lips a round O; у — lips pushed forward; и — a smile; ы — a smile, but the tongue pulled back.

Practise

Read each line aloud, left to right, pointing at each letter. Slowly. Then again, a little faster.

1. А О У Ы И
2. И Ы У О А
3. А У · О И · У А · Ы И · О А
4. АУ! АУ! — this is what Russian children shout in the forest when they are lost: ah-oo! Shout it together.
5. УА-УА — a baby crying. ИА-ИА — a donkey.

Now the small letters, the same lines: а о у ы и · и ы у о а · ау · уа · иа.

Check yourself

Worksheet

Download Worksheet 1 from the attachments below and print it. It has the five letters to trace, the five letters to find in a row of letters, and a line to write each one.

Answer key (for the parent)

• Trace: any recognisable А О У Ы И counts. Reversed letters are normal at this age; show the correct one and move on.
• Circle the letter: row 1 has А three times; row 2 has У twice; row 3 has И three times; row 4 has О twice; row 5 has Ы twice.
• Match the sound: father → А; moon → У; see → И; sport → О; the one with no English match → Ы.
• Say it: tick the box if your child said all five sounds when you pointed at the letters, in any order.