A question for SYNTHETIC PHONETICS fans.

[Eaney]

Having read here that virtually every word can be broken down using synthetic phonetics i had a conversation with DO who refused to believe this.

Anyway he has asked me to ascertain how the following word could be explained to a child using Syn Phoenitics:

Said
Cupboard
Entrepreneur

He will be thinking of more words (I know what he is like) so be prepared.

Thanks

Yes, some words you do teach as sight words. In real life this does NOT confused children IME.
My four year old is perfectly able to understand that once upon a time, for example, Wednesday was said 'Woden's Day' and as time went by it got changed so people started saying Wednesday. It was a good opportunity to talk about the old gods - so Thor's Day, Freya's Day, Moon Day, Sun Day etc etc
I think a child can easily understand that once the world was said as cup-board, a place to put your cups. But as time went on people started saying 'cubboard' and so that's why we say it like that now.

For 'said', I'd just say that we pronounce the 'ai' as 'e'. And actually, my ds could easily read the world in a sentence. he would probably read it as 'sayd' but would understand what that meant.

Some northerners still pronounce the d in Wednesday. And the t in often.

But using JP he has learnt that "ai" = long a as in bait.

And yes, this is a word he has learnt by sight, and can certainly read in context. But I seem to remember catflap going on about not using textual or pictoral clues for synthetic phonics. At present with the books he is reading he is able to read I would guess 30%-40% of the words through either some form of non-phonic clue or as a sight word.

Whilst phonics is obviously an essential part of helping to read/decode, I can see why there is a lot of dispute as to whether it is the silver bullet in teaching children to read, especially in a classroom context, where you don't always have the benefit of one to one tuition.

Yes CM, we also pronounce film as filum! No hope for us!

homemama!

ladymuck - it doesn't matter about pictures. Ds1 is 4.5 and in reception - coming across teh word 'said' he'd blend the sounds 'sss' 'ay' 'd' and then just change it to said realising that a) there is no such word as sayd and b) it's supposed to say said based on the rest of the words in the sentence. They say it as it sounds using the learned JP sounds and then naturally adapt it to fit the sentence and to match a word they know exists.

Furthermore, using the phonics approach, at only 4.5 ds1 can already make an amazingly accurate attempt at writing almost anything just by sounding it out loud and writing down the sounds.

Oh and I pronounce the 't' in often. Not the 'd' in Wednesday though!