This is a ' How to Use' PowerPoint for Teacher Judy's Sound Dictionary app. The app uses a simple color/vowel bridge to make Pronunciation and Spelling easy for ESL/EFL and English learners.

1. How to use:
Teacher Judy’s Sound Dictionary
app
Pronunciation and Spelling
by Color

2. Teacher Judy’s Sound Dictionary
provides a bridge from
to
spelling pronunciation
and from listening back to spelling

3. The Bridge is a Simple Color Association
A happy accident is that the 16 vowel sounds
of English happen to be found inside the names
of 16 ordinary colors:
Long ‘a’ is in Gray /Ay/
Short ‘a’ is in Black /a/
Long ‘e’ is in Green /Ey/
Short ‘e’ is in Red /e/
and so on….

4. The Vowel Sounds Look Like This:

5. Back to the App
There are four tabs or buttons:
Home, Reference, Dictionary and Contact
This is Home.
That was easy.

6. Reference
1) English Pronunciation
- four Key Principles
2) English Spelling
- spell from listening
3) English Phonetic Alphabet
- 40 sounds of NA English
4) Thompson Vowel Chart
- with audio support

7. Spend a few Minutes Here
Not clear about the Key Principles? There are
dropdown arrows with more info:

8. The Vowel Chart
Vowel Chart is at the bottom
of the Reference page
Audio of each sound

9. Pronunciation Dictionary
The moment we have all
been waiting for:
Pronunciation
Enter a word you can
spell but not say in:
* The Dictionary has an
alphabetical list of the
2,000 most common
words in English.

10. How do you say Suit for Example?
I typed in suit because
spelling is crazy and
learners have a lot of
trouble with suit.
Two good guesses came up
suit and suite
I want the clothing one
so I click on the top entry.

11. Suit
The screen explains itself.
EPA is the English Phonetic
Alphabet
(see Reference page)
EPA
Suit is a Blue word Suit is a Blue word
Synonyms are here too

12. Suite
Just for fun let’s back up
and click on suite
Suite is a Green word
And it has a ‘homonym’
(whatever) - sweet

13. Pronunciation Recap
To find the pronunciation of a word that you can spell
but not say,
Go to the Dictionary button
Type the word you want to say in Search a Word
Click on the word for its Color/Pronunciation
The app contains the pronunciation of the 2,000 most
common words in English, categorized by color
dictated by the main vowel sound.
[Spend a few minutes learning vowel sounds by
color from the Vowel Chart in Reference]
WARNING: Don’t start word entries with capital letters

14. Spelling Dictionary
The Color button in the
top left corner takes you
from listening to spelling.

15. Spelling
Listen to the vowel sound
in the main syllable of the
word you want to spell.
What color is that vowel?
Click on that color
the word is alphabetical in its
color chapter.
For fun let’s pretend we can’t
spell ‘alert’. It sounds like /a lErt/. It’s Purple.

16. How do you Spell /a lert/…?
Scroll down Color List to Purple and Click.
There it is! Words are grouped alphabetically by color or
main vowel sound. It’s a SOUND DICTIONARY.

17. Sound Dictionary Recap
To find the PRONUNCIATION of a word you know how
to spell, enter it in
To find the SPELLING of a word you have heard,
determine the Color of the main vowel sound
and find the word listed alphabetically in its
Color chapter.
Hint:
Your word has to be one of the 16 colors from the
Vowel Chart in Reference – there are no exceptions.

18. Back and Forth
To get back to the Dictionary
main page from anywhere
click Cancel or ALL at the
top of the Color List.
If the word you want is not in
Teacher Judy’s Sound Dictionary,
click Add a the top right.
You’ll get the word in an update.

19. Contact
The last tab or button is
Contact.
You can reach me any
number of ways for more info
on our products, questions or
comments.
Enjoy the App!

20. Sound Dictionary Products
Teacher Judy’s Sound Dictionary
is available for $1.99
For Apple and Android products
from iTunes and Google Play
The app is the beloved child of Grass is Black
the original Sound Dictionary
which includes definitions and expressions.
Hard copies of Grass is Black - $39.95 from Amazon.com
http://amzn.to/1tFZ82o
PDF of Grass is Black - $14.95 from the E-Store
www.thompsonlanguagecenter.com
Have a great day!