Question about Phase 3 Phonics

[TheDuchessOfKidderminster]

What difference is there meant to be between ‘ur’ and ‘er’? I thought they were equivalent sounds but assuming that’s not correct if they’re taught separately at this stage.

[Norestformrz]

It’s a flaw in Letters and Sounds one of many

[TheDuchessOfKidderminster]

Right, I won’t give it too much thought then 😊 Is it a mistake or is there some sort of reasoning behind it?

[Norestformrz]

The example they give of corner the spelling er is a Schwa rather than the sound /er/ you would find in her. It seems like a glaring error if not I’m not sure of their rationale.

[MrsKCastle]

They're pretty much the same in my accent, I teach them as alternatives for the same sound.

[Arkadia]

Not sure I follow. Ok, "corner" and "her" are different, but I am not sure what the point is.

[Norestformrz]

The point is that the spelling at the end of corner doesn’t represent the sound /er/ as Letters and Sounds suggests.

[Norestformrz]

MrsCastle I’d teach the er in her as another way to spell the sound /er/ along with ur in hurt, ir in girl, or in word, ear in earth and urr in purr but I would not teach corner or after or mixer

[Arkadia]

Oh, ok... I shan't be investigating that resource, then ;)

[Arkadia]

Totally OT, but here we go:
Norest, does the grapheme e-e exist or is it redundant?
Think, say, of "complete" or "eve". Shouldn't be "e-e" or "e" (as in me, be, she) and "ve"/"te" (as in twelve)?

Sorry for the OT. ;)

[HidingBehindTheWallpaper]

It depends on your accent. For me the ur in turn and hurt is the same as the ir in bird and third and the er in water, butter and later.

[Norestformrz]

The grapheme e-e is the sound /ee/ in Eve, gene, obsolete, compete, delete Steve, scene, these, theme etc

[bangingmyheadoffabrickwall]

/ur/ as in /hurt/.

/er/ as in /summer/ so has more of a short /u/ sound rather than a long /'uuuur'/ sound.

Make sense?

[bangingmyheadoffabrickwall]

/er/ in phase 3 is at the end of example words for L&S.

boxer, supper, rocker etc.

Where we live it is pronounced as a short /u/ sound at the end. We don't emphasise it as an /ur/ sound. It's almost like a cross between an /a/ and /u/ sound TBH.

[Norestformrz]

The technical name for that weak vowel sound at the end of a word is a Schwa banging. It’s the most common vowel sound in English.

[brilliotic]

Picking up on Arkadia's OT question,

so in 'complete' and 'eve' there are two different ways of decoding these words that use 'known' or standard PGCs.

Eve
/ee/ /v/
spelt 'e' for /ee/ sound (as in he, me, be) and 've' for /v/ sound (as in 'have')
OR / AND
spelt e-e for /ee/ sound and 'v' for /v/ sound.

I see the redundancy Arkadia mentioned. Both ways seem 'correct' for decoding as well as encoding. As in, I can see the word written down and use my knowledge that 'e' sometimes makes the /ee/ sound, and that 've' is a spelling for /v/, to sound it out and blend it correctly. And I can listen to the word, segment it into its sounds, and use my knowledge of those PGCs to encode it/spell it. AND I can do the same by applying two different PGCs namely e-e for /ee/ and v for /v/.

Would a child be told that either way is 'right' (the other wrong)? Is there a reason for preferring one over the other (when both seem 'correct')?
Or is this 'redundancy' just one of those quirks of English spelling?

[Arkadia]

Exactly my point, brill.
My DD1 was taught both, but, by the teacher's own admission, it caused confusion with the kids. Ok, it was his fault because he mis-decoded "believe" with a "e-e", but still if you have "e" for /ee/ and "be", "te", etc. For /v/, /t/, etc, what is the need for e-e?
Seemingly in the classroom they were wanting to move words around.

[Norestformrz]

Personally I prefer the ve, te, ne etc but it’s usual to teach it as a split digraph e-e (and I’d get rid of “magic e” )