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Split diagraph? Or magic e?

49 replies

Mehfruittea · 26/05/2017 20:12

DS YR teacher has told him not to say or use magic e as a way of remembering what the split diagraph does.

He has been told only to use the term Split Diagraph. He's 5. Is this normal? How many grown ups know what this is without looking it up? (Or being a teacher/linguist Grin).

OP posts:
AgentOprah · 26/05/2017 20:18

Grown ups might not know, but most 4-11 year olds will!

user789653241 · 26/05/2017 20:18

I think there was a talk about this on other phonic thread recently. Can't remember which one.
My ds says his school don't use term "magic e".

Ditsy1980 · 26/05/2017 20:20

Split diagraph in DD school also. I had no idea what she was talking about and had to google it 🙈

ChampagneCommunist · 26/05/2017 20:22

My DD (8) had no idea what a Magic E was. She knows what a SD is though.

Her father (better school than either of us) had heard of neither

Mehfruittea · 26/05/2017 20:22

The alphablocks use magic e!

OP posts:
spanieleyes · 26/05/2017 20:23

Why would you call it a magic e? It might be an e but it isn't magic!

SavoyCabbage · 26/05/2017 20:24

I'm a supply teacher so I'm in different schools all the time and I haven't heard of the magic e for years and years now.

Try Mr Thorne for all your phonics needs!
http://mrthorne.com/tag/split-digraphs/

EspressoPatronum · 26/05/2017 20:25

Yep, split diagraph now. I remember being taught magic e but now teach phoneme grapheme diagraph etc.

LemonRedwood · 26/05/2017 20:26

Why not give it its proper name when teaching it to children? We do with many other things and don't think of that as over complicating anything.

There is also nothing magic about the e.

LemonRedwood · 26/05/2017 20:26

Also, it's a split digraph, not digraph.

LemonRedwood · 26/05/2017 20:28

Autocorrect corrected me! *digraph, not diagraph

amysmummy12345 · 26/05/2017 20:28

Magic "e" works on stand alone words like "pin" to make "pine" "pan" to make "pane" but you can't just go sticking a magic "e" on any word to make a new one, that's why spilt digraphs taught as themselves works more effectively.

mrz · 26/05/2017 20:40

Neither. We talk about split spellings (but they know it's the same as split digraph)

MollyHuaCha · 26/05/2017 20:48

I never liked the term magic e. I remember the disappointment as though it were yesterday.

Teacher: "Look children, it's magic! Add an 'e' and see how the word magically changes!
pop > pope, can > cane, kit > kite..."

Little MollyHuaCha: "Er... is that it? When does the magic bit start?" Hmm

mrz · 26/05/2017 20:51

Wish there was a like button

ExplodedCloud · 26/05/2017 20:54

Ds started at home with magic e because it worked for him. His teacher was OK with it and he knows it's easy split digraphs that they do at school.

Caroian · 26/05/2017 21:22

I think a lot of people of my age (mumblemumble too close to 40mumble) like the whole "magic e" thing because we remember "Look and Read" and those daft songs and videos

The problem is that the actual "rule" we were taught was if it has an e on the end you say the vowel name rather than sound. And this just doesn't work for children learning phonics correctly. My son's school do talk about split digraphs (teaching this kind of terminology seems very standard - it is just unfamiliar to those of us who were not taught this way) but when reading they also ask children to look for "special friends" when they are sounding out, to remind them to look for different ways the given letters can be sounded. This applies for split digraphs, trigraphs etc - anything that they may overlook on first sounding. It's a prompt to look beyond individual letters and sounds.

If children have been taught phonics well, this reminder to look for all the ways of sounding out should be enough.

Tomorrowillbeachicken · 26/05/2017 21:24

I had to teach my son split digraphs and used that term. Before that I had no idea what they were.

user789653241 · 26/05/2017 21:40

Tomorrow, why did you have to teach them yourself?
I still have no idea what they are, I only heard ds talk about it long time ago, and still no clue to this day.

Tomorrowillbeachicken · 26/05/2017 22:34

Yep. I watched mr Thorne does phonics on YouTube one afternoon with my son and he seem to 'get it' from that.
We had to teach them as his class was still on the first phase of sounds and he needed split digraphs to access the book band he was on.

Tomorrowillbeachicken · 26/05/2017 22:40

Split digraphs are words like:
Pipe
Or
Cake
Where the i and e
or
a and e
Or indeed u/o/e and e get together to make a sound. The vowels together make a sound but the letters are split by the letter between them.
(If you know what I mean)

mrz · 26/05/2017 22:47

The spelling (digraph) ie is the sound /ie/ in pie, tie, die etc but is "split" in pine, tile, dive - another sound divides the spelling (only one sound)

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rosy71 · 26/05/2017 22:50

Split digraph. Magic e is no longer used.

NennyNooNoo · 26/05/2017 22:59

I knew what you meant by magic E because DS ( year 2) used to watch alpha blocks when he was about 3. Other than that, I didn't even know there was a term for it.

catkind · 26/05/2017 23:08

Well it makes sense to call them whatever school are calling them. DS's school talked about digraphs and trigraphs from reception, so it made sense that they called them split digraphs. There's no reason for 5 yr olds not to learn the term, they learn new words every day.

I don't see the problem with using magic-e in general though. I was on the previous thread and couldn't make any logical sense of the objections. It's just a term with a bit of fairy-dust about it to make it memorable to small children. No big deal.

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