Phonics

I was never taught to put an 'r' in anywhere.
I thought perhaps it had changed.

Goodness!

Phonics is not elocution lessons. I know, I have taught it.

It's about how each of the individual sounds which make up the spoken word are represented in the written word by a letter, or group of letters, of the alphabet.

You teach to the local accent. Simple.

The worksheets could have come from anywhere. Teachers post resources on various sites and other teachers copy and use them. So a teacher with a southern accent will group words like path, bath, grass etc as having the 'a' representing an 'ar' sound, where a northern teacher would say that the 'a' in those words represented the 'a' sound in 'pat'. It's not a problem.

No one minds in the slightest if you adjust the groups to fit your accent. The important thing is that children know the sound the letters represent and can use that knowledge to work out what a written word 'says'.

And children don't get confused. I was teaching northern children in my southern accent. It was fine..

Children adapt. One set of GC live darn saarf, the other set, up north. They may pronounce things differently but they can all spell. Funny how they both say Hampshire and Lancashire with a short ‘a’ though.

My early education was in Australia, sat on the graass, had a baath, etc. When I came to the U.K. a Merseyside grammar school I was considered posh, soon adapted to grass and bath to fit in but when a Scouser cuts themselves they ask for a plaaster, sounds really funny.

GrandmaKT

Bathsheba - I am discussing the difference between the long a sound, as in park which I could accept and the 'ar' sound which is what the worksheet is telling them. E.g. the difference between 'daance' and 'darnce'

But do you not think that the 'ar' sound in the phonics worksheet is intended to mimic the long 'a' sound in park? Does anyone actually pronounce the 'r' in park? I've always thought the spelling merely gives the long 'a' sound, hence the use of it in phonics.

LauraNorder

My early education was in Australia, sat on the graass, had a baath, etc. When I came to the U.K. a Merseyside grammar school I was considered posh, soon adapted to grass and bath to fit in but when a Scouser cuts themselves they ask for a plaaster, sounds really funny.

Did you drink wardah, LauraNorder?

At least we northerners tend to be consistent. ?
Ask a group of southerners to say the word 'Pakistan' and you will get three different versions, with some pronouncing both a's as a long vowel, some only the first a, and some only the second. I regularly hear all three of these on news programmes.

Ok, maybe not quite 100% consistent in the north. I can think of a few words that wouldn't get a unanimous response, such as 'plaster' ?

I was brought up in Shropshire, but two miles from the Welsh border, I have always said baath and paarth and plaaster,as has my husband who was brought up in a Welsh village by Welsh parents. (DH looked at me very oddly when I asked him had he ever pronounced them differently, and replied “why would I?” He thinks lockdown is getting to me!)

Mind you I was always encouraged to pronounce “poor” as “poo-aa” and to pronounce “Often” as “offen” not sounding the ”t”. No idea why.

Lexisgranny interesting!
I was brought up the other side - the Shropshire/ Staffordshire border and I pronounce path and bath with a short 'a'.

I taught EAL and phonics for around 10 years in an inner city primary school in Derby. This was at the time when we had large numbers of new arrival Eastern European families.

Consequently there would have been lots of Polish and Russian Derby parents wondering why their offspring spoke English with a pronounced Brummie accent!

Lexisgranny

Mind you I was always encouraged to pronounce “poor” as “poo-aa” and to pronounce “Often” as “offen” not sounding the ”t”. No idea why.

People do that a lot in the corner of the NE where I live.

Mind you, there is sometimes no consistency in their accents. The most noticeable 'problem' for me was how to teach the 'oo' spelling. Easy for moon and spoon, but when it came to look and book, well... Some children said 'luke at a buke', some said 'luke at a book' and some said 'look at a buke'...

I am currently helping to homeschool our yr1 GC whilst DD goes into the office.

We actually did this in phonics this week, the teacher added the r in the explanation of the words ba(r)th pa(r)th to distinguish from other a sounds.

Whilst emphasising that the correct spelling of the word does not include the letter r

Sorry for my muddled explanation, hopefully it makes sense.

I am from Southern England although have a house in the NE now.

I say darft and rarft. I'm aware Geordies use the hard a in those words though. Neither is wrong.

In primary school I was taught that we all pronounced "one" wrongly and it should be "wun" not "wan".
I actually have a complete mix of accents having lived in the North & south.
I say "barth" not "bath" and sometimes "grarss". But give me a word with an "U" in it and the Yorkshire shines through- it's buses and butter not bases and batter. There's also a bit of Geordie in there now and I say "Newcassel". I do draw the line at "fillum" though.

LOL trisher. A Geordie teacher friend of mine was once actually marked down in a teaching observation for pronouncing film 'fillum'. A shocking thing to do by an arrogant tw*t. How can you police someone's accent? Ludicrous.

I remember once in an assembly at my northern primary school, the headmistress stopped the hymn we were all singing (All things bright and beautiful?) and told us we were not to sing ‘flow-ers’, we should sing ‘flaars’ ?!

There you go!

Yes, we know our a's from our arse r's in the North ?

GrannyGravy13

I am currently helping to homeschool our yr1 GC whilst DD goes into the office.

We actually did this in phonics this week, the teacher added the r in the explanation of the words ba(r)th pa(r)th to distinguish from other a sounds.

Whilst emphasising that the correct spelling of the word does not include the letter r

Sorry for my muddled explanation, hopefully it makes sense.

That was a really stupid thing for the teacher to do. If your GC pronounce the 'a' in bath, etc. as /ar/ then they would take it for granted that that 'a' spells an /ar/ sound. Absolutely no need to confuse them with made up spellings.

The letter 'a' can represent at least three sounds, /a/ as in 'pat', /ar/ as in 'father' (depending on accent) and /ay' as in 'favour'. (Up here it could represent a sound halfway between /ay/ and /e/ (led) as some NEasterners have a distinctive way of pronouncing 'father'.) That's what children should be taught and what they actually find perfectly easy to learn.

Problem is that a lot of teachers don't really understand phonics, either.

ixion

There you go!

I've lived in 'the North' for nearly 50 years and people telling me that still really annoys me!

Gagajo I remember people being told to modify their accents when they were sent out on teaching practice, the fact that the children probably understood them better than the rest of us didn't seem to count. Mind you in later years the deputy head announcing to the school "You'se 'll all have to.... " used to grate a bit.

I was surprised when we moved from darn sarf to the midlands as a child, and people pronounced ‘one’ as ‘wan’ (as in pale and pasty looking). ( I couldn’t the past tense of ‘win’ there, since it’s pronounced ‘wun’ - what a minefield!)

I used to teach English as a foreign language - TBH I’m surprised more of them (mostly speakers of Arabic) didn’t tie themselves in tortured knots over our spelling.
Though I did once have an elementary student write ‘nacad’ - (knackered!) When I asked where he’d learned that word, he said he worked with ‘many English soldier’!

...couldn’t put....

MaizieD I have just spoken to friend of DD’s they teach yr1, graduated 6 years ago
from a Southern University and that was how they were taught to teach phonics.