Primary literacy ...split digraphs

proper terminology

There is a time for children to learn these terms, and the Primary stage is not the right time.

As a long retired Primary school teacher with a nine year old Granddaughter I am horrified by the way joy has been sucked out of education for the young and replaced by a ghastly sausage machine full of tired and disillusioned teachers dealing with tick boxes, targets and SATS.

Split Di gaff

'leave da house'

It is part of the teaching of literacy that uses phonetics to teach. It means that in order to understand a split digraph a child needs to understand a digraph- 2 vowels that make a sound e.g. ee or ea or ie. A split digraph then needs another letter or sound inserted between the 2. It is probably enjoyed by your GD because it is taught quite often in a practical session where 1 child holding a card inserts themselves between the 2 who are the digraph.Children really enjoy this. But a lot liked the 'magic e' as well. I always think anything that works is OK. Of course English isn't a phonetic language- but that's another argument!!

Many very young children learn to read quickly and just absorb the digraphs etc. That would be the "look and say" method.
Then they would have to learn the letter combinations when it comes to spelling.

I am a retired teacher, also head teacher. I was horrified that my 5 yr old grand daughter was using phonics trying to 'sound' out 'fire fighters' so I said the words to her. She looked very patiently at me and said 'Yes Grandma I know what it says but I have to sound it as well as reading it'. Out of the mouths of babes.......

Five year olds are like sponges - they absorb whatever is offered to them in class provided that they enjoy it. We should give credit to teachers' ability to provide fun, informative and appropriate lessons. They are the professionals. Primary school classes are far richer and very different from those which most of us experienced. What was good(?) for us is not necessarily good for today's Year 1 children. My 5 year old grandson loves his phonetics lessons and proudly (and correctly) explained split digraphs to me a few months ago.

Absolutely GranE

The Gradgrind approach to education seems to have taken over the entire system, from primary school to university. My friend, a recently retired FE teacher, speaks wearily of the fact that there is now only one way to read a text, one set of key words which must be included in an answer, and absolutely no original thought whatsoever...

As for the children, I was surprised when my granddaughter started in Year One and the teacher announced they would be learning to use terms such as "adjectives" and "adverbs". Wouldn't it be helpful to get them all reading fluently, before you start worrying about grammatical terms? Bearing in mind that some 5 year olds are struggling to read at all.

When I was a child, I was brought up speaking/reading/writing both French and English. English in the morning, French in the afternoon - we were all bilingual, so it wasn't a problem. The thing was that in English, it was "look and learn" and you learned grammar without any real terms or rules, whilst in French, we had it all drilled into us. OK, sometimes it wasn't fun, but I remember my French grammar much better than the English one. I don't really remember English grammar other than punctuation and collective nouns! . The French stuff on the other hand is stuck in my head, and is very helpful when learning Spanish when I was 60 onward...

Forgot - what is different to the children today? Why do they need to enjoy everything. As a teacher myself, I have tried to make it enjoyable, but sometimes one just has to learn stuff.

I could never help my grandchildren with homework because everything I knew now has a new name, usually a multi- syllable nonsense word which means nothing.
Apparently 10 year olds now have to learn all the formal grammar which was dropped when I was 10. You don't need to know the made- up names of every sort of word in order to write good English. We all learned to speak without this gobbledegook and without it children might have time to learn more valuable stuff.

Sometimes children do just need to learn stuff, I agree. But some of the stuff they are now required to learn benefits them not one jot.

Well, I agree with Dr Seuss - "Children want the same things we want. To laugh, to be challenged, to be entertained and delighted." I would far rather that a child could read "Green Eggs and Ham" to me with real understanding and pleasure than that they could analyse its grammar. Plenty of time to learn formal terms and grammatical rules when they are older. Considerably older! When they are very young, let them learn to read freely and immerse themselves in books. The pleasure of reading is a lifelong gift.

When I was learning Italian I soon saw that they paid more attention to grammar than we do, but they didn't drag in all the stuff that schools are teaching now. I have yet to meet a teacher who thinks it is anything but but a waste of time and aimed at getting a good review from Ofsted.

What's wrong with saying magic e? Why use complicated split thingamebobs? Can anyone recommend a book giving all these new posh names?

Pleased some of you agree with me. Also, Larrymin, I find the same with reading with my DGD , she keeps sounding out the word she knows well. I thought it was probably to do with the phonetics teaching. I think there is a place for phonetics teaching but look and say has its place too.
Re the emphasis on grammar in other language teaching, most other languages are far more regular than ours so with fewer exceptions to the grammar rules they are easier to understand and absorb.

DGD1 said her homework was to write a passage containing causal connectors. I assume she meant because etc.We used to call these types of words conjunctions which covered all joining words

Did Dickens, the Brontes or Jane Austen use causal connectors or did they manage to cope without having to make up names for things?

Interesting talk on "A Point of View' today on Radio 4 with A.L. Kennedy. (Amongst all the other interesting things going on now. She is against his very grammar based approach to language teaching at primary school level, this focus on the mechanics rather than the meaning and feeling. Also made an interesting link to the Referendum and the slogan writers.

Crumbs! Mine will have to go to their other gran because I don't have a clue what split whatsits are.

Despite at excelling at English 100 years ago, have never ever heard of a digigraph , split or otherwise

Can't even spell it !

When we reached the last day of term, and GS1 who is autistic was looking forward to 6 weeks of not having to go to school, DD said she had never looked forward to the holidays so much even when she was at school herself. Decided there will be no spelling or grammar practice at home.

well b..... me I passed my English Lang and English Lit O level and studied A although didnt stay on long enough to take it and had never heard of a split whatsit Amazed I could get through life without it

Has anyone seen the way they teach small ones simple maths nowadays or maybe its changed again but the multiplication and division were so blooming complicated with loops and jumps and such a long convoluted methos twice as difficult as the way we did it