Jolly phonics

[EverybodysScaryEyed]

the school has just been through all the phonics and phenomes and I was surprised that there was no 'ph'

is there a reason for this? It just seems like a common sound that can't be sounded out

but I know nothing about teaching kids to read so am happy to have it explained to me and what I should do when I come across 'ph' with DS

Is he still in reception? If so, he probably hasn't got there yet. Just tell him the sound ph makes when you get to your first example.

ph is an alternative grapheme for /f/. So when you come across it in a word, just say "ph is another way of writing the f sound".

he is in reception but they have started by doing all the 'sounds' - i think there are 42?

I don't want to confuse him if the teacher is going to cover this but from what I understand they are finished with the 'sounds' so I guess I will just do as you both suggest. I just wasn't sure if this was going to be dealt with later

Thanks!

Jolly Phonics starts by introducing one spelling for each sound so the most common way of writing is f not ph which will be introduced when the children are taught the alternative ways of representing the 44ish sounds

Don't get confused between 'sounds' (phonemes) and the letters they are represented by (graphemes)!

Although learning the letters which represent a sound is very often called 'learning the sounds' it isn't, it's learning how the sound is represented. The sound is the thing you say, the letter is a 'grapheme' or 'correspondence.

There are about 42 -44 'phonemes' in English with some 160ish common ways to represent them with a letter or letters. Jolly Phonics introduces one way to spell each sound, then moves on to the 'alternative' spellings.

ok - so when he writes phone he will put 'f''oa''n'?

And then as he moves on he will learn about the e at the end and the ph etc?

Or is this something he will pick up from reading?

foan is acceptable (phonetically plausible) until he has been taught the alternative ways of writing f and oa

It'll be taught when it's encountered as a variant /f/. This can be early - if there's a Sophie in the class, she might be a teaching aid. Or perhaps an elephant, or indeed a phone. But a competent teacher using a phonics based approach will teach the different ways of writing the phonemes.

The same is true of the "magic" e at the end of a word: /ay/ will be taught as "ay" "ai" and "a_e" etc.

If they really, really want to write phone, though, surely it's better to introduce them casually to f/ph rather than letting them spell it wrongly the very first time they ever write it?

Ok - thanks!

I think I will leave it to the teacher when it comes to the writing as she seems to know what she is doing!

I'll just help him with it when reading.

he and his sister have names that just don't work with phonics so I had to tell him that names can be different!

DD didn't seem bothered by ph. To us it seems outlandish, maybe because it's used in words of Greek origin, but I think that to a child learning a lot of correspondences it's just one more. DD has more trouble remembering some of the vowel digraphs that "look" more obvious to me.

Yes - names are a really good way of introducing the idea of irregular spellings and children learn the "tricks" really easily - ask anyone with a Thomas!

well he's not chomping at the bit to read so we probably won't get past "fat cat sat on a mat" anytime soon anyway! Just want to be prepared

he is really into rhyming words at the moment so maybe that is a way of introducing irregular spellings (today he did a rhyme with 'yawning' and 'morning' for example)

Don't they learn ph accidentally in elephant?

I suppose it depends on whether or not they've been reading before they get to reception.

They may want to use the word phone or photo or you may have a Philip or a Phoebe in the class which provides the opportunity to introduce "ph" spelling