Phonetic versus "adult" alphabet

[GeorginaA]

I have recently bought ds (22 months) a pop-up alphabet book after showing interest in letter shapes on my t-shirt. (You know the type... an ape swings down from the letter 'a' etc) It's proved a big success but I'm wondering:

• am I being a bit too "pushy mummy" in doing this - if he was bored then I wouldn't bother. But he's really keen on books and likes seeing words printed out.

• do I use phonetic sounds to tell him what the letters are or the "adult" sounds? I've noticed that subconsciously I've used a mix of the two which is sure to confuse him The only problem is, this may sound thick, but what are the phonetic sounds for 'f', 'q', 'u', 'x' and 'z' - I just end up using the adult ones without thinking each time. (Actually, it sounds even more thick, written down). Also, I don't want to interfere with phonetic reading teaching at a later date, but then I also notice that the kiddies alphabet song (which he hears quite a bit) uses the "adult" sounds of ay, bee, cee etc.

I don't want to confuse ds - would appreciate advice from any teachers amongst us!

Curse my ambiguous typing (that'll teach me not to preview): he was showing interest in letter shapes not me, and the ape is swinging down fromt the letter 'a' in the book not on my t-shirt!!

DS1 has been using the Letterland system which has
Fireman Fred
Quarrelsome Queen (so kw for Q)
Uppy Umbrella
X, Dodgy one this, they have Max and Maxine (I think) so X is ks
and ZigZag Zebra.

I think we used to say that A was called Ay but made the sound a (IYSWIM!). It only really became an issue from about 3 when we introduced the Letterland books which are just stories with lots of words beginning with the same letters and characters like Dippy Duck who look like the letter shapes.

I think at your DSs age, just getting him to recognise the letters is fine - worry about the technicalities of pronunciation later. I'm sure we taught DS the letter names to start with, just to get him used to recognising them.

My dd was very keen at that age and now (age 7) is a brilliant reader. I didn't push but whenever she showed an interest we got the letter books out and she was always keen. My dss were/are not so keen but ds1 now doing very well with reading. I think if they are keen there is no harm at all in encouraging it and it has massive benefits.

As far as phonetics go, it is better to teach him the letter sounds rather than the names, as the sounds are what he needs to put them together as words. Even though he won't understand fully at this age you can show him how c-a-t makes cat. etc. We used to sing the alphabet song too and I think I explained at some stage that the letters had names but at the moment it was easier just to know what they sounded like.

The letters you asked about:
(The "uh" part should be pronounced as a very short "oo" sound as in "cook" not "loose"; rather like a teenager's repsonse to any question - "uh"

f = "fuh"
q = "kwuh"
u = "u" as in "but"
x = two schools of thought on this one - either "uhks" or use the name of the letter
z = "zuh"

Does this make sense? I hope so. Let me know if not and I'll try again!

Makes lots of sense, thanks SoupDragon & judetheobscure!

I have a real dilemma as well on this. What are the advantages of teaching them the phonetic alphabet when they have to learn the adult one anyway? Surely it would just confuse the child? I'm trying to help my ds as well and have bought a Letterland book but I don't know who ends up more confused. Also he spells ear using the adult alphabet even though at nursery he's using Letterland. I'm chickening out at the moment as I didn't learn phonetics at school and they totally confuse me, how can you learn phonetics anyway when there are so many intonations on the letters you can't possibly learn them all by abc. I read to ds and end up spelling things if he asks but I use the adult abc which I probably shouldn't do. Even typing this its confused me!

I understood the latest approach among early years teachers is to combine phonetics with word recognition (ie whole words), as using a totally phonetic approach with the english language can sometimes be confusing, as it's so irregular (as opposed to a language like Italian). (The word 'but' for example, if read phonetically b-u-t sounds like "butter" ? how do you explain the difference?)
I've held off teaching my ds to read, partly because of my confusion about the best way to do this, but partly, also because he has, until recently, shown no interest (even though he loves having stories read to him).
Apparently, I taught myself to read, and that must have been largely by word-recognition (following the story as it was read to me and learning to recognise which sound related to which word.) My instinct tells me to be led by his interest ? pointing out written words that relate to sounds. But like you, Georgina, I'd be very interested to hear what the teachers have to say.

Megg, I agree it is tricky.
c-a-t is easy in phoenetics but c-h-i-c-k is impossible until you get into the more complicated realms of paired letter sounds. I believe in Letterland, the idea is that the Hairy Hatman makes Clever Cat sneeze meaning that CH gives a sneezy sound I intend leaving this to the teachers!

I think phoenetics is good as it enables a child to make a stab at writing /reading unfamiliar words whereas the look-learn-repeat type teaching means they can only read the words they know.

The way I imagine it im my simplistic mind is that a child can understand that a lion is called a lion but makes the sound ROAR! so they can probably grasp that A is called Ay but makes the sound a. They shouldn't have trouble with phoenetics and Ay Bee Cee.

There, clear as mm uh duh

Georgina ? did you see the recent thread about teaching your child to read using Jolly Phonics? People seemed quite keen on this system. (can't do links, but try doing a search on "Jolly Phoneics" (sic)) HTH

Both the nursery ds and dd attended plus their school have always said that the letters have a name (adult ay) and a spell-sound (phonetic a). This was linked to sight words (words they need to recognise as whole words) - basically those first words needed for reading that don't fit in with the phonetic spell-sound rules - words like with, I, he, she, my, said, like, no, is, we, go, you, and, are, to, all, this, come, for, they, was, the, of, me, see.
I think the idea is that by the time they need to expand their reading beyond spell-sounding etc. and they start using 'adult' letters then they can understand the different pronunciations of each letter - this seems to be at ks2 level (school year 3 and upwards).

Megg - why do they have to learn the adult one anyway?

There is no advantage in young children knowing the 'adult names' for letters. For example 'f' never makes the sound 'eff', 'p' never makes the sound 'pee'. If a child is trying to read the word 'fog', if they 'sound out' the letters phonetically they get there straight away. If they 'read' the 'adult names', they get 'eff oh gee', which gets them absolutely nowhere. Please, please, please don't teach your children these adult names.

DS1 is far-and-away the best reader and speller in his class - Yr1, reading age of c.9, he's only 5.5, but he knows only about half a dozen of these 'adult names' - they are just not necessary at this stage. (OK he can recite the alphabet song, which he does to find things in alphabetical order).

Sorry to contradict you judetheobscure, but none of the phonic sounds have an "uh" sound at the end (except letter"u". So f is actually "ffff", NOT "fuh". You don't say fuhish, you say fish. (Think about the actual sound in a word). Bad phonics teaching is really the bane of my life, because it affects their reading and their writing. I HATE Wendy Turner on "you Do Too", her phonics are appalling!!! She says things like "muh" for m. When was the last time you heard anyone say muhirror for mirror???Likewise, "x" is a "ksss" sound, and "z" is "ZZZZ", as in buzz.
KMG, you are SO right.

Sorry about the wink, no idea how I keep doing that!

What is the alphabet song, I've never heard of it. Is there an ELC tape or something that has it on?

Um, it's just the alphabet sung to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle little Star". I think.

Go to Nick Junior Website , click on "Nick Jr. Playtime" and play the "Face's Alphabet Game". He sings the song before the game starts.

Just to add my thoughts, FWIW. I used both my my ds (now 4.5) ie "this is the letter ay, it makes an 'ah' sound..." That sounds very school teacher-ish, it never was, just very informal in play. He had one of those snake alphabet puzzles from ELC and we used to play with that a lot. It never confused him - he could recite and recognise the alphabet by 2.5.

I think phoenics is really important - I was never taught it at school and so find spelling really hard and most of the children who spell well in my class (year 3 - i am a teacher) often, if they can't spell a word, will spell it correctly phonetically and then we talk about how horrible English is! But I agress with what everyone else has said...your ds can cope with both and no it won't confuse him...just make sure you don;t add sounds to letters that aren't their - like Lara2 said.
Jolly phonics is excellent and personally I prefer it to Letterland.

My son insisted on knowing both the names and phonic sounds of the letters.

He just wouldn't let me away with one letter making different sounds without some constant.

So he would formulate his own little rules - "the letter is called 'ay' and most of the time it says 'ah' but sometimes it says 'ay' or even 'aw'" etc.

If you know what school your child will go to, find out how they teach reading. This may help you. Singing the ABC song (I hadn't noticed the tune was the same as Twinkle Twinkle!!) is helpful as it teaches children alphabetical order. On the other hand, they must know the phonetic sounds of letters to learn to read and write. And not just the sounds of letters but of letter combinations such as "ch", "sh", "ai", "oo". Our school uses jolly phonics and it works well.
But beware, as somebody has said on another thread, you can end up spelling things out to other adults over the phone using phonetic sounds!

Lara 2 - I hear what you're saying about the 'uh' sounds and, following advice from a couple of teacher friends that sounding the consonant without an 'uh' was the best way to teach phonics, I tried very hard to intonate the letters, eg c, m, f, p but, in my opinion it just doesn't work. You can't actually get a sound out if you don't put a bit of an 'uh' either after the consonant or before it, let alone make a clear distinction between the similarly formed letters eg m, b, p.

When teaching them to read simple words I started cuh - a - tuh and gradually ran it together in small stages with an intermediate stage being c-uh-a-t and then to c-a-t.

My first two children were taught with the 'uhs' and at the age of 5.5 they have had reading ages of 8.10 and 9.5 respectively so it didn't go wrong with them. Obviously all children are different and different approaches would suit different children.

XAusted - couldn't agree more about finding out how your school teaches reading to get a consistent approach.

Megg - once they have mastered the basic single letter pronunciations they then go on to combinations eg. ch, oo, ph, ght. With the help of context they can then make a very good stab at the correct pronunciation for a word.

Lara 2 - the wink comes when you type in a semi colon followed by a close bracket -. However, I seem to recall I got one in a previous post when I put in an exclamation mark although I don't see why that should happen. I've just gone off to the "getting started" section to learn how to do the others.

Honest and truly judetheobscure, you CAN make the sounds without an "uh" sound after them. It affects their writing worst of all, because they will write that "uh" sound.
Thanks for the advice on the winks -

TBH I think people get very hung up on "how" to teach children to read. Even within the education system the popular methods change at fairly regular intervals. Every child is different and flexibility may be needed for different children. For example my son learned his entire alphabet (adult sounds) before his second birthday along with written numbers. I didn't teach him (because I actually don't believe in teaching very young children to read unless they show desperation to learn). He now reads odd words- again he hasn't been taught them and I actually have no idea how he knows them. I just know that phonics isn't going to work for him- he can't pronounce a single word correctly so phonics is just going to be gobbledegook. As he is teaching himself using a sight reading method I will probably teach him using this later on- he has a ludicrous memory so he will probably manage this. If there comes a time whe he would manage phonics then fine I will add it. if not never mind.

Incidentally my counsin ended up having to be taught mainly by sight reading as he just couldn't manage phonics- his teacher was fairly relaxed about this.

I suspect my ds2 will learn using phonics- he's more conventional!

I'd love to find out how his school is going to teach it, but we're in the process of moving so I have no idea what system he would be using. I'm going to look more into Jolly Phonics because that sounds interesting - but so expensive!

I am a bit concerned about consistency, but yes SoupDragon, it makes sense that if he can work out a lion says "roar" then knowing that a letter has a name and a sound shouldn't be confusing.

I am now a bit paranoid that I'm pronouncing the phonetic sounds wrong, however! So maybe I do need to at least pick up the Jolly Phonics handbook so I don't make any glaring errors...

Lara2 - I'm interested in what you say about unwanted 'uhs' affecting their writing. I've not noticed this happening but I'm wondering whether it's different according to the age of the child when they start reading and writing. Maybe when they're older they can't make the transition from cuh - a - tuh to c - a - t so easily. My children certainly didn't start writing to any great degree until quite a while after they had learnt to read so it didn't affect them in this way.

I still maintain there are some letters which can't be said - difficult to demonstrate in a text message but how do you say m if not uhm or muh and p if not puh or uhp. You need a vowel sound of some sort in order to get the lips to open on these "closed lips" consonants. I can see the 'uh' before might make the word flow more easily because it is a bit shorter than after.

Jimjams - I think at some stage they all need to understand how phonics work in order to read more advanced texts but some children might just pick it up themselves rather than having to be taught it as such.

Jude - 'm' is easy. You just go 'mmmmmmm'. Like nice bum, mmmmmm!!!