During the 1700's, the pronunciation of oo changed. Some of the variations included the oo of food, the short u of wood, and the uh of flood. After the students have learned the sound in the English language, they can learn how to pronounce the individual words. Have the students read and study the passage so that they can answer the question on the test. Learning pronunciation must start with learning about syllables.
Syllables are the natural divisions of a word according to pronunciation.
A new syllable is formed around each new vowel sound. Each syllable stands by itself in pronunciation. Where two vowels are separated by a consonant, the consonant is usually pronounced with the second vowel. Genus is broken up as ge-nus, the n belonging to the second syllable. The consonant is pronounced with the first vowel when that vowel is short but stressed.