Phonics

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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!)

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' ?

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?

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.

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.

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.

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..

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

GrandmaKT . here is an article about how teaching and local accents.

www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/news/posh-up/

This is a snobbish world, and it is still the case that school leavers with posher accents get better jobs.

Ok so based on my googling, the r part isn’t actually taught to be included in the word. The ar is a differential tool for teaching English - so that the child can understand that different sounds have different spellings.

So even with this method in use children are not being taught to put extra sounds into words as OP assumed.

GrandmaKT, that is a most interesting question.

I will try to find out the answer.

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'

Nobody speaks like that really
Well of course people do, don’t be so daaft. I live in the south and nobody pronounces daft, path, raft, etc with a short ‘a’ as in cat, it is always, always with the long ‘a’ sound, as in park or barn. And yes, I do say Doncaaster, sorry dragonfly .
And I say Glaasgow as well!

Surely, GrandmaKT, you are aware of regional dialects? How can you honestly believe that ‘nobody speaks like that really’?

Lolo81

I googled the phrase a says ar phonetics and got some really interesting sites coming up. Apparently this is commonplace in teaching English as a foreign language, but there are dialectic differences in teaching - who knew!

I was just about to say that - I have come across it in ESL worksheets, Lolo81

Witzend

Isn’t it more a case of dahft and rahft etc.? No actual ‘r’ sound in the middle of the word.

Yes Witzend, or I would say a long 'a' sound - Daaft, raaft, but if they go round saying darft and rarft they will sound like members of the royal family circa 1950! Nobody speaks like that really.

I googled the phrase a says ar phonetics and got some really interesting sites coming up. Apparently this is commonplace in teaching English as a foreign language, but there are dialectic differences in teaching - who knew!

MissAdventure

I say barth, parth, and all that jazz. Or jarzz.

That's because you're posh.
I say bath, path and all that jazz with a short 'a'
Because I'm common.

I've never come across this in worksheets.

Isn’t it more a case of dahft and rahft etc.? No actual ‘r’ sound in the middle of the word.