In addition to being able to produce phonemes accurately, students must also be able to identify which phoneme to use in a particular word. For English, a grapheme does not always correspond to only one phoneme. For many hearing people, pronunciation is learned incidentally, and they may not even be aware of the pronunciation rule itself. Attempting unfamiliar words can pose a challenge for Deaf and Hard-of-hearing (Hoh) students because they may have reduced access to incidental learning of spoken language. For these students, skill can be developed through the intentional learning and application of rules and strategies.

We can establish or teach a written system for representing the phonemes in a word. You might consider teaching an established system, such as the International Phonetic Alphabet (*note: most dictionaries use their own phonetic systems. Therefore, it may be helpful to review dictionaries that the student prefers in sessions). Basic orthographic symbols may represent suprasegmental elements, such as using capital letters to denote stress, or spaces and dashes to demonstrate syllabification.

One approach to improving pronunciation skills is explicitly teaching rules of pronunciation. If a student is able to learn a rule that can be generalized to other words, this can improve their ability to decode and pronounce new words when processing language outside of speech therapy. Instructors should mention that not all words follow English pronunciation rules; this is likely due to influence by one of English’s languages of origin. Another approach to teaching pronunciation is to pull from functional and relevant vocabulary within the student’s daily life. This is especially relevant to students at the college level who encounter new vocabulary within their field of study often.

Another area to highlight in instruction is that where a target word occurs in a sentence as well as words that come before or after it determines its’ meaning and pronunciation.

• Part of speech (verb, noun, adjective): "They have separate workspaces" vs. "Separate the eggs"
• Tense (past vs present): "She read that book last year" vs. "For homework, read chapter 11"

For pronunciation instruction for Deaf and Hoh students, a strategy to facilitate self-monitoring is writing phonemically what the student said in a trial for them to review, or playing back a recording of the student’s productions for them to review. Provide strategies students can use outside of the therapy room, such as using online dictionaries to determine pronunciation through written diacritic markers or by playing audio examples provided by online dictionaries. Carryover can also be supported by maintaining a list of relevant vocabulary practiced in speech to be practiced at home and applied in relevant communication contexts. At the college level, this often looks like applying specific words and phrases in job interviews or class presentations.