Quick phoneme question for the experts

[swedishmum]

I know I should know this but my mind is blank at the moment. In "sharp" for eg, is "ar" 1 phoneme or 2? As in /a:/ or a: r. Does it depend on regional accent or would it always be written as standard English? Ds is getting mixed messages from 2 different TAs at school.

Many thanks.

[poppyknot]

I think it woud depend on accent. There are rhotic (pronouncing the r) and non-rhotic accents.

DH would say sh-aa-p with the a as in bath. I would say sh-a -r-p. But then again my 'r' isn't as strong as some and so maybe just counts as a half. My lingustic knowliedge is lost in the mists of time so apologies if not v precise..

[singersgirl]

Swedishmum, you could try asking \link{http://rrf.org.uk/messageforum\here}. The board is pretty active and there are lots of phonics experts who often debate this kind of thing!

If it helps at all(probably not) in Jolly Phonics it's taught as one phoneme, but I guess based on a standard, non-rhotic accent.

[kipper22]

as singersgirl says, I've always taught it as one sound using jolly phonics. poppyknot - would that be bAth the way i say it or bAth (rhyming with the daff of daffodil) as Devonian DH says it?

[mogwai]

It's definitely one phoneme as in /a:/

SLT

[swedishmum]

Thank you. How great to have all this expertise .

[CarolinaMoose]

jeez, your ds does some advanced stuff at school

[swedishmum]

Ha! He's only 9 but he is supposed to look at phoneme segmentation to do with his dyslexia. I'm doing a specialist teaching course and should know the answer but after talking to one of his TAs this morning I could see that he was being told 2 different things by 2 different people. Wanted to check (starting to doubt my own mind!) so that he understands what he's doing.

[maverick]

In the word 'sharp' ar is a phoneme and a digraph (2 letters representing one sound)HTH