To be shocked that not even one y4 child knew the meaning of the word velvet?

[Utterlybananas333]

My sister is a teacher in a South London primary school, she is a year four teacher of around 30 8 to 9-year-olds. She was recently describing her disbelief over the fact that not a single child knew what velvet meant? There were some crazy guesses, and lots of children who thought it was cake (probably relating to red velvet). Is it just the fact that children and adults don't talk anymore? That nobody reads anymore? Or even watches educational TV programs? Would your child know?

Yes, and I’m someone who reads and still learns new words constantly; there’s, of course, no shame in that! But there isn’t much excuse for mispronunciations anymore; if you don’t know how something is pronounced, we (almost) all have handheld computers now that can clarify it for you in seconds.

Really? I disagree with your sofa comment - we've just bought a new sofa and after trekking round four furniture shops I can clarify that there were loads of materials that were not velvet. I don't really like it myself - when I run my hands against the pile iyswim it's like nails down a blackboard.

Newspapers and magazines are also pretty dated now that everything is online, which is a bit of a shame!

Zara’s current velvet stock:

https://www.zara.com/uk/en/search?searchTerm=Velvet&section=WOMAN

Department stores, where they still exist, don't have whole floors of fabrics to make clothes anymore anyway. That's something from well in the past.

So few people read magazines or newspapers now.

And? What are you attempting to prove here? That all kids are exposed to them to the degree that we were?

I would say absolutely not. Demonstrated by the fact that so many do them do not have the first clue what it is. It may shock you to know that "all" households don't buy expensive velvet quilts from Toast, velvet headbands haven't been worn regularly for about 40 years now, and "all" mothers don't even go to Zara for velvet party dresses. It doesn't mean they're a bunch of uneducated peasants.

Just asked my 7yo DS (year 3). He knew what a hedgehog was, no idea about velvet, and suggested a handkerchief was a type of monkey 😂

Just asked my 5 year old and she said ‘it’s like a type of material’. She wore a velour dress, looked like velvet, on Christmas Day and probably overheard a conversation between MIL and I about how sweet it is and how when I was little I always had a velvet dress for Christmas.

She also said a handkerchief was ‘a thing in the past’ and when I asked what you did with it said ‘you blow your nose’. That one surprised me as we’ve only used tissues and not sure where she’d heard it, grandparents or school maybe.

I’ve taught that age - I would be surprised that nobody in the class would know the meaning/ couldn’t work it out from context but of course it would depend on the particular cohort.

Google ‘Tier two vocab’ and you’ll see why this isn’t simply a question of ‘they should know it/ they don’t need to know/ my kid knows it because we have velvet curtains/ velvet is a ‘random word’.

The theory is that Tier two words ( I’m guessing ‘velvet is a Tier 2 word) are the ones kids don’t know, They’ll know the easy Tier one words and , ironically, they’ll know the Tier 3 ones as they are always in exams ( precipitation, adverbial, binary etc). Merchant is a Tier two word, for example.

Literature and reading of any kind constantly ( and in my opinion, should) demand us to learn new words. Ask any kid taking GCSE English ..or any teacher teaching them it, to be fair. Vocab always lets them down esp in the unseen papers. This is the problem when we start to dumb down the curriculum. Whether we are shocked by the fact kids don’t know this word or whether we can’t care less and start to justify why they don’t need it, the fact is, words are the ingredients of language and we are impoverished if we don’t know many.

Id bet quite a lot of money that my children's Instagram algorithms are not showing them any velvet clothes, or if they are the advertisers should be asking for a refund for piss poor targeting 😂

I sew and so know what garbardine is and twill generally but what is Cavalry twill please?

My y3 did not know and my y5 did.

My friends son is in his late twenties and didn’t know what sequins are till recently, he knew what they were when she showed him a picture he has just never known what they were called and had never needed to ask or talk about them 🤣

I just asked my 7 year old and she knew the answer. Took her a while to remember the word "fabric" but as others have said, it's not like I'm at home sewing clothes so it's not a subject we talk about often.

I asked my y4 summer born boy and he said a type of fabric and my 9 year old said a type of material, I obviously must have super intelligent children 🤣. It is an obscure word really, I imagine my children know what it is because we have been sofa shopping recently and quite a few materials are types of velvet (I didn't order a crushed velvet sofa, honest 😆).

I'm sure there are plenty of things I can ask my children about that they will have a very articulate answer for that my rele in her 80's would be clueless about and vice versa, certain things they just wouldn't have come across in their lives.

@hihelenhi - it’s New Year’s Day, and this is only idle chat on an anonymous forum. No one’s mentioned uneducated peasants except you. And no one is the slightest bit interested in getting at you. There’s no need to take it so personally …

Well, yes, the print industry has been in terminal decline for decades now. Because papers and magazines used to be where people got their info from and now they have the internet. Times have changed. Again, it has its obvious downsides but I'm not sure it means everyone who doesn't read magazines is an uneducated peasant. (I wouldn't touch them with a bargepole, personally, especially so-called "women's" magazines. Ghastly stuff). Just that times and info sources are different.

Books I feel kind of differently about, because the storytelling in books is something unique and of course, brilliant for language development. But even growing up (mine was a "book" household as was my wider family & I always had my nose stuck in one) lots of kids did not really come from homes where books were a thing. I think that's far sadder than not reading glossy magazines, tbh. I suspect many kids' storytelling experience outside of school is confined to film and TV.

Erm, nobody is taking it personally. Calm down.

The stock of a women's fashion retailer doesn't correlate to the vocabulary of 8 year olds though, they aren't browsing that website

No, you calm down!

No, you!

😂😂😂

Yeah absolutely this! My son (8) only knows it because it makes me recoil in shivers if it's anywhere near me no so my class not knowing wouldn't surprise me at all because we're not often in soft furnishing or clothing departments 😆

There are plenty of adults who wouldn't know the meaning of velvet either.

Recently doing a crossword over lunch hour, no-one else in our team had heard of calico, either the place or the fabric.

At 4 years old?

Yes, while I obviously know it's a fabric, I tend to use it more as a simile. And describing my dog's ears is probably my most common usage!

Stupid. There are kids who won’t know about any random item in the world. Sure some kids can teach ur sister things she doesn’t know. At her age. And the way u have worded it too, like you said do u know what velvet means?? As opposed to say do u know what velvet is? Do u know what velvet feels like? She should use her words better to teach.