Phonics in the South

[Buttons0522]

Posting here for traffic.
I am sure this is going to sound totally daft, but I’m intrigued having been through a phonics scheme this year in reception…
How does it work with teaching/learning phonics in the South?
My (Northern) child can sound out bath and grass easily. How does this work with a southern accent?!

Not a problem in the South West 😊

My first 2 were home educated and didn't learn using phonics, the last one just says 'parth' 'barth' 'grarse' etc.

SW here and I'm northern, all my pupils got taught the proper northern way 😄

It just means children often misspell these words. Phonetics isn't the only way children learn to read, and they'll begin to see the shape of words.

We talk about which words use a long [a] and which use a short [a].

Phonics schemes take it into account when planning the introduction of each sound.

I just say some people say grass, some say grarse. Both are correct. My DS has caught on pretty quickly. He might sound out g r a s s but then with change it to grarse when blending the sounds together.

Good question! I think they must have sounded it out the northern way, but ended up speaking them in the southern way when in context. I’m in the south - can’t remember but my DC did sometimes have northern pronunciations like their teacher for the odd word, but in the playground they’d all go back to southern accents.

I don't know the answer to this but it made me remember teaching English in Spain and some of the kids chatting away in a Scouse accent 😂 😂

Really interesting, thank you for indulging my curiosity!
DS has double r in his name and insists on underlining it every time he writes his name because that’s how he’s been taught rr is presented. He’s a stickler for the rules and the phonics schemes seem very prescriptive so it got me thinking…

They learn the sounds to match the written blend so b a and th become bath etc so will learn the pure sounds so accent shouldn't affect it.

I had a colleague who moved from north to south. Her son was put in the bottom spelling group at his new school, which surprised her. It turned out that on his first spelling test, there were lots of words he'd never heard before, so he'd just done his best: barth, grarse, etc.

I used to be a primary teacher (I’m from the south but right in Yorkshire) and found it difficult teaching northern children cvc words with ‘u’ in the middle as people who have grown up with a northern accent say something close to “oo” for that sound instead - they don’t naturally have the ability to make the ‘u’ sound as it uses a different part of your mouth to any other vowel sound (even as adults, unless someone who’s always had a northern accent is particularly good at mimicking accents, they have to really think about saying the ‘’u’ sound and a variation of ‘a’ is what comes out instead). In spelling tests, I had to say words like cup or mum or butter etc in their accent or they were confused. They understood what I was saying completely normally, but it threw them with phonics and spelling.

Northerner here who spent some time as a TA in a Surrey school. The kids just learn a 'rule' and then learn there's a different way of saying it. I was called out for saying Uh - Uh Umbrella in phonics, teacher said its ah ah ahmbrella. Against the actual letter sound, but kids got the dual explanation quickly.

I was teaching English in Gib, listening to some of the girls reading Wuthering Heights was a treat, broad Yorkshire in a mixture of Spanish and English! Loved listening to the girls talk who generally spoke Spanish between themselves but would throw in English if it was easier!

I always thought my southern children were disadvantaged with phonics. C-a-t fine, then b-a-th ???

Yep Northerner here and teaching phonics in the south. They sound out the words using the sounds they know but they spell the words phonetically when writing (Barth etc).

I also tell my phonics groups that I hate teaching “oo: look at a book” as my original accent doesn’t make that noise! I also tell them that my accent can’t make put a red word! Put can absolutely be sounded out!

@Advicechangeim in the south and my kids don’t spell the words phonetically, bath will be spelt bath not barth. They have a southern accent when speaking tho

@aneelli no mine don’t now either, I’m talking about the children I teach phonics to who are just learning to write using their phonics so age 4/5.

In my phonics training I questioned put being a red word. I still can't quite get my head around why it can't be sounded out.

Because if you sound out "put" you get
P u t like golf putt.

Its pronounced more like "poot" with the "oo" sound being like that in cook or book with a southern accent.

I believe RWI has northern and southern versions for this reason.

In the south it's a red non decodable word, in the north 'put' is a green word as you can sound it out with the three sounds.

I've just never come across anyone pronouncing it like that, and I'm married to a southerner.

All I can say is I’m sure you will have the tricky words song forever imprinted in your brain by the end of year R!!
Not all words can be spelt out phonetically so not sure why you would get hung up on just those few words because they are pronounced differently in the south!

We had a short period of northern pronunciation but "bath" and "path" reveted to "barth" and "parth" quite quickly because kids speak the words more than they read and sound them out in books so it's a bit like a tricky word like knife. After a while you read the word on sight not sound

Have any of my fellow northerner teachers exiled in the south, had a parent complain about their accent?

I posted recently about one of mine who did. I've lived here in the south for 45 years and I thought my East Midlands accent had all but gone, but apparently not!