Why Biff, Chip and Kipper?

[1dilemma]

OK I have to ask was reading one of these yesterday (not by myself obv.) and why B,C & K why not John, Jane and Bob or Tilly, Tom and Sam or Chantelle, Tegan and Kyle or Candida, Iolanthe and Tristan?

chip teaches them the blend quicker?

They teach ch as a stand alone sound, and they cover it fairly soon in the phonic schedule.

chip would be kuh-hip if it was phonetic surely?

I have often wondered about the weirdy neighbour too.

And the glasses

no, they use Jolly Phonics to teach them. ch has its own action, ditto all the other 2 letter phonic sounds I listed. The ch sound is moving your arms like a train. I imagine it is helpful to see it frequently in 'Chip'.

They learn "the" pretty soon, don't they? That it's not t - h - e?

English is such an illogical language they need to learn all the common anomalies asap.

No, because, c and h put together are taught as ONE phonic - ch.

It is a constant rule of our language that C and H together say ch - so it has an identity of its own.

Once a child is taught this rule, they don't forget it, and start sounding out C, H, I, P. YOu don't do that when looking at a new word - you treat ch as a sound in itself, you don't split it.

I know they teach it as a stand alone sound, I tought reception for long enough , just thought if the reasoning behind the names was easy phonics they wouldn't have chosen chip, blends take a while to learn. Maybe wendy's on the right track.

We could do a google search and find out if there's any reasoning behind it!

so how did you learn the real names?

what books ?

In set 64 do they suddenly grow up and call themselves Barbara and Christopher and invite the leery neighbour round for a drink?

year 10 ggirl!

EG

Ds1 can read "thing" - th i ng

But he can't read "Take" - he doesn't understand the magic E rule yet! He will say t a k e - "Tah-keh!"

Barbara/Biff starts smoking
Christopher/Chip agonises about coming out of the closet

Thankyou clever mumsnetters cuious about the real names too

In set 243, they plant the pampas grass and buy a wooden fruit bowl.

colditz not every school follow jolly phonics to teach them, although they all follow some kind of scheme.

at pampas grass! So do they live together then?

colditz_that is what the neighbour is waiting for!

When it comes to teaching the word "THE" we also say to the children its the rude word - the word you have to stick your tongue out for! Honest children then remember it.

see, if they aren't doing Jolly Phonics, then Chip is a 'hard' word.

I personally think they should all be pulped for elephant's scrotum wrap, but hey.

ggirl - the children learn all about Biff, Chip and Kipper and real names when they hear the tape stories right at the beginning of their reading books! (Did your DC have the books without the words?)

yes he did

so he's kept that from me then

Naah, Chip is an easy word if you do letterland, in letterland 'clever cat' (c) always sneezes if he stands in front of 'hairy hat man' (h) so makes the noise 'ch'

I wish I didn't know this stuff, but I worked in a school that used letter-land for two years. Personally I prefer it to jolly phonics though

The author said In terms of names, I came up with Biff, Chip, and Kipper because they are basically classless names which carry no suggestion of regionality or social position. What's more, there are very few children called Biff, Chip, or Kipper ? I think it would be annoying for any child to be reading their own name repeatedly.

Oxford Reading tree have produced a set of books since this (Kipper tells time, abc,etc) which say that Biffs name is Beth (short for Elizabeth), Kipper is Christopher, and Chip is David. They all got these names as Kipper couldn't pronounce them when he was a baby so his babynames for them stuck

Also the illustrator doesn't look like the caretaker - he does draw himself in the books sometimes along with the Queen, Jeremy Beedle, Neil Kinnock, etc but the caretaker is different. In the new spin offs the Caretaker is the Time guardian - Mr Mortlock