Scottish people- how is phonics taught in Scotland?

[Bigearringsbigsmile]

Following on from the shaun the sheep thread.
In England, we used to use Letters and Sounds and now schoold use a variety of different schemes. All have standard pronunciation of phonemes as part of the scheme. Letters and sounds had adjustments for regional variations like flat vowels. Bath, grass etc

I am really interested in learning how it taught in Scotland. Do you have different schemes to England? Are the phonemes different to allow for rhoticity?

I’m Irish and I understand that ‘Shaun/Shorn’ is intended to be a pun for people
with a certain accent, but it just doesn’t work in mine, like some of the rhymes in Julia Donaldson (scarf/laugh). Which isn’t a problem, it’s just like one of those quirks of pronunciation in Jane Austen (she pronounced ‘join’ as ‘jine’, for example) you need to remember.

I’m southern England and they rhyme to me :)
Sure is said the same as shore. Which rhymes with four.

I don’t know how sure and fur do though? 🤣

How is the oo sound in 'book' and 'moon' different?

As someone else said, wh is a different sound than w, not like putting the h before the w. It's the sound of gently blowing out a candle or some dust off your palm. I'm from central Scotland.

To me, sure is shoo-er, I can't make it rhyme with four (fore)

Sorry for causing even more confusion

Oh yeah, true

I'd feel a bit pretentious saying loch the way scottish people do though. Like saying Paris in the French accent.

I even started out with a Scottish accent but don't have one now. Although I apparently retained my wh sound without realising it until this thread.

Variants of English English will have distinctions that don't exist in Scottish English that are helpful for specific foreign languages though. And standard French and German have uvular r which is quite different from Scottish English r, and in German there is no r at all after a vowel which is more like English than Scottish English.

The real problem is our ridiculous spelling system. Other countries have reformed their writing systems so spelling matches pronunciation (of a particular majority or prestige dialect).

Some English people pronounce book more like buck but moon to rhyme with spoon if that makes sense

I can't make sure rhyme with fur🤔
Fur rhymes with purr
Sure sounds the same as shore

What do you mean - you started out saying loch with Scots accent but now think it would be pretentious to do so? Are you Scots are are you not? I could move to Africa, America, Asia, the moon but I'd still say loch not lock because that's what a Scot enunciates

What on earth are you on about? I'm Scottish. I teach in England where I now live. As such I am certain how phonics is taught in England and 'believe' certain sounds are taught a certain way in Scotland because that's what I've read.

I know English English is non-rhotic. My degree was linguistics! My point with our/are was my pronunciation is different to the English children I teach, for whom they are homophones.

Anyway, nice as always to try to contribute relevantly to a discussion on Mumsnet (Scottish, linguistics background, work in education in England) and get such an argumentative reply...

Our school have recently moved to the RWInc Phonics ( England origins) and there are challenges for teaching some digraphs.
The "oo" ones below still baffle me 🤣
Will just use different examples when we get there.
In the example below both "oo" digraphs would sound exactly the same ! West Scotland

Yes, I understand that too, but I didn’t realise it was meant to be a pun until I read about it. I didn’t get the joke at first. I just wouldn’t think of shorn on hearing Shaun.

I didn’t know the Jane Austen jine for join. Is the pronunciation important in any way to the meaning? Why do you need to remember it, other than for authenticity I mean?

Gopher for sofa used to give me problems when reading rhyming books I remember. I think it might have been in Oi Frog but I’m not certain now.

I read that and started pondering that 'lazy' might actually be accurate in terms of parts of the speech apparatus used! No soft or harsh gutturals, so less use of the throat. No rolled r's, so less use of the tongue. Possibly other things too. So maybe it is pronunciation with the least effort!

Hopefully someone with the necessary linguistics or elocution or speech therapy expertise is reading.

Ofc, maybe English English forms sounds that other languages or variants of English don't?

I think most Germans can because they have the ch sound too.

I moved quite young and am fully integrated into English life and speak with a southern English accent. So it would stick out as me putting an accent to say this one word differently than the rest of my current speach, even though I can.

It would be different if I had retained my accent.

Yep. Both oo sounds definitely the same to

i really don't know how they teach the r sounds in areas where they don't pronounce them.

There are two oo phonemes

One is a long oo like moon and spoon and one is an 'u' like book and cook and took

If English people pronounced Loch like Scottish people do, we would sound like wankers. As someone said like saying Pareee instead of paris or pie- ay- a instead of paella. We know how to say it , we just don't because it would make us sound pretentious

There are two pronunciations of sure here in Ireland.
‘Yes, for sure’….rhymes with poor, not with shore for me
‘Ah sure I will’…rhymes with fur, it’s sometimes spelt shur/shure.

@Ygfrhj True, but I was thinking less of spelling and more of being able to hear the distinctions and physically form the sounds required :)

Goodness. You think my reply was argumentative. It wasn't but if that's what you want to think, go ahead and do that.

Where in England are you from? Do you pronounce fur to rhyme with sir? And thus sure also rhymes with sir? Sure and four (and shore) rhyme in my Welsh accent, and the accent of the part of the England I now live in. I'm struggling to think of an accent where they don't rhyme, so hoping you can let me know yours as probably I've just not thought of it.

@Bigearringsbigsmile I'm Scottish so that's why the oo thing makes no sense to me 😂 Book and cook and took and look are all the same to me!