Does anyone know the 'proper' way to explain 'magic e' in phonics?

[owlelf]

DS is in Y1. His School have adopted Read write inc this year (previously Jolly Phonics).

He has guided reaching once a week, and daily WRI sessions, but he doesn't read one to one with a teacher.

Apparently as he is doing well he doesn't get any one to one reading. I feel that this puts added pressure on me to guide him properly at home. I'm very happy to read with him each night, and we both really enjoy bedtime stories. But I do feel pressure to make sure I explain things to him in a way that is consistent with what he is taught in school- otherwise I will confuse him.

Anyway, I know that the term magic e is now outdated. He does struggle over the concept of an 'e' changing a letter sound to a letter name- and I'm not sure if there is a clever way to explain it? I would live to know how this is covered in the read write inc program.

Can anyone help?

So when a parent asks, 'Why is my child having trouble with x, y, z?'
I shall keep explaining what is tricky about those particular spellings.
unfortunately most of the time what you say has no basis in fact

'how can anyone say the magic e doesn't perform magic?'
Because letters or, more properly, spellings don't 'make' sounds and they don't 'say' sounds and they certainly have nothing to do with magic. If you want to confuse children instead of telling that that letters stand for the sounds in our everyday speech, that's the way to go about it.
The code is complex and because it is complex it needs to be taught from simple to complex over time. Throwing in ideas about letters being magic makes young children think that letters can 'do' and be anything at all. After all, the letter can be 'a' in 'cat', it can be 'ae' in 'baby', it can be 'or' in 'all', it can be 'o' in 'wash'.
Maybe it's better to offer young children a new way of thinking about the split spelling: one that is logical, simple and true.

Magic e makes the vowel says its name.

Not in give or have or love or more or come or some or glove or store or .... many other words

Euphemia no I haven't read the whole thread.

It is helpful to teach magic e makes the the vowel say its name because mostly that is what it does. It's much easier to learn that and the few exceptions, than it is to try and understand language with no general rules.

Unfortunately, LittleFrieda, the 'few exceptions' probably amount to about 50% of words ending in 'e'.

I don't think it's very helpful to teach a 'rule' which only works 50% of the time.

And the OP did ask for the 'proper way' to explain 'magic e'...

Masha - my daughter is also learning to read in a language that has a pretty transparent code. Yes, it's easy. Does that mean she holds up her five-year-old hands in horror at how hard English is? No, partly because I try to give her the impression that this is something she can deal with, bit by bit. (Or sometimes all at once: "Oh look, here's a handy list of ways to write the sounds (from Debbie Hepplewhite's site). Shall we tape it to your door?" (It's about as tall as she is, when it's printed out).

Of course it helps to understand the problem, but good phonics resources IMO help people to do that. And after that, a lot of it's about attitude.

MaizieD The exceptions are not anywhere near 50%.

Magic e makes the vowel says its name.

OTOH, if mrz has convinced us that all letters are silent (though who knows what they get up to between those closed covers of a book) it is we, the reader, who say the name in response to that particular spelling.

Unfortunately, LittleFrieda, the 'few exceptions' probably amount to about 50% of words ending in 'e'.

In the everyday words, particularly single syllable, that little children will be reading, the exceptions must be far fewer than 50%. I have been a child and I can't say that that approach confused me in any way, even though surrounded by the exceptions that were the popular girls' names of the 1950s. Surely, it can only be confusing if a child believed it is set in stone.

Exactly CecilyP.

In the everyday words, particularly single syllable, that little children will be reading, the exceptions must be far fewer than 50%.

It's extraordinary how people seem to forget that little children will grow into big children and the restricted reading vocabulary that most of them (thanks to ORT) are getting now will become immeasurably wider and that, when that happens, a significant number of them are completely muddled by inaccurate 'rules'. What is more, they often grow up to be muddled adults who cannot understand 'phonics' because it isn't rule bound and who think that reading and writing are very hard to teach because the rules keep being broken.

Look at poor old masha who just cannot bear it that English spelling doesn't follow 'the rules'.

I have been a child and I can't say that that approach confused me in any way,

And I was beaten regularly as a child and it never did me any harm... [where's the eye roll smilie when you want one...]

CecilyP if they were making a noise between the covers I'm sure you would be able to hear them what with you being exposed to all that magic as a child.
Fortunately some of us found reading easy to pick up and didn't suffer any difficulties working out that there wasn't anything more magic about than any other letter in the alphabet, it seems others are still under the spell.

It's extraordinary how people seem to forget that little children will grow into big children and the restricted reading vocabulary that most of them (thanks to ORT) are getting now will become immeasurably wider and that, when that happens, a significant number of them are completely muddled by inaccurate 'rules'. What is more, they often grow up to be muddled adults who cannot understand 'phonics' because it isn't rule bound and who think that reading and writing are very hard to teach because the rules keep being broken.

No, I haven't overlooked the fact that children will grow up and read books with unresticted vocabulary - but they have to start somewhere. If, in your experience, it is better to teach children, from the outset, all possibilites of a-e, e-e, i-e, o-e and u-e, so they don't get confused later, then I will have to accept that. I am not sure why you would mention rule-bound. When you teach the DCs their first sounds, do you immediately say, of course this isn't always the case, or do you just add more possibilities gradually?

'I have been a child and I can't say that that approach confused me in any way,'

And I was beaten regularly as a child and it never did me any harm... [where's the eye roll smilie when you want one...]^

Not quite the same, as I can be sure about my lack of confusion - you cannot be sure if the regular beatings never did you any harm.

CecilyP if they were making a noise between the covers I'm sure you would be able to hear them what with you being exposed to all that magic as a child.

Who's to say I can't. However, I had never actually heard of 'magic e' until I was an adult, but was definitely taught with the magic e, rather than the split grapheme approach.

In primary schools we would teach the "simple" one letter represents one sound code first, teach that one sound can be written in different ways and one spelling can represent different sounds. For vowel sounds we teach the most common ways to spell the sound. So my Y1 children have been learning that "ae" can be written and (most also know that and are also ways to write "ae") now they are learning that "ee" can be written and . Next we will look at how can be "ae" in steak and "ee" in stream.

enjoying this thread.. just marking my place..