phonics experts -come and settle an argument

[sausagesandwich34]

scone it's an oldy but a goody!

pronounced to rhyme with cone or gone?

does the magic 'e' come into play?

does the magic 'e' even exist anymore?

Children learn language in several ways. One is hearing people speak but another is being told what is correct and what isn't. Not everybody that children come into contact with speaks in the same way. Someone said fast to my daughter yesterday with a raised and elongated a in its middle. And she explained to me that this is not the way that we speak.

Scon(e) as in done.

that means you say " scun" to rhyme with pun.

Misbopeep
Masha- have you thought about writing a book on this as you spend a huge amount of time "educating" people- maybe you could actually make it pay?
I have, as Mrz has pointed out. (I just hope that her doing so won't get banned from this forum.)

Foolish though this may seem, I am much more concerned about 'educating' than making money. I first became annoyed and pre-occupied by the inconsistencies of English spelling when I first started to learn English at the age of 14, but it wasn't until my premature retirement from teaching (mostly English and modern languages in Dorset for nearly 20 years) that I had the means and leisure to study them and their origins in depth. My retirement happened to coincide with renewed media pre-occupation with literacy failure in the 90's and blaming it on poor teaching, while totally ignoring the alphabetically irregular nature of English spelling.

I think what finally pushed me into this, when my health began to improve a bit and I was considering what to do with my life, although I had a small pension, was some phonics expert saying that the rest of Europe has higher literacy standards because they use nothing but phonics. She was suggesting that if the same happened over here, the results would be the same, which to me showed abysmal lack of awareness of the differences between English spelling and all other European writing systems. I felt somebody needed to do some 'educating'.

Doing research and writing a book seemed the best way of doing it at the time. But the internet has given me opportunities for 'educating' in ways which no fairly academic book ever could before.

This is very annoying to people who still like to pretend that learning to read and write English is no different from other alphabetically written languages. - It makes it much harder for them to sell their piggies in a poke. But lots of teachers really appreciate what I have done and continue to do.

So you are an expert in child development too learnandsay ...I'm impressed

Yup, and I built the international space station.

There's about as much expertise on mumsnet as in my left armpit. It's just that some people have a mighty high opinion of themselves. It's just a forum where anyone can post stuff. It's not a scientific journal.

I don't think much of the decor or finish

It's just that some people have a mighty high opinion of themselves.

I know, the conceit - anyone would think they had successfully taught hundreds of children to read over twenty years and therefore know precisely how to do it, or something....oh, hang on...

Or alternatively people who actually have many years experience and qualifications disagree with your opinions so you dismiss them out of hand

Ah, hello again, Masha. You were about to tell me last week exactly how many classes of children you'd taught to read again? Not sure what happened to your answer......

Ooh, Masha, your Amazon reviews are funny

When you're in a public forum which has no requirements on who can post then your postings are no more important than anyone else's. It doesn't matter if you're Mother Theresa or the Dalai Lama.

Which ones Feenie, the ones she wrote herself or the ones from teachers?

Depends what you're posting about, and whether you know a bit about it or not. I've received good advice for years on MN, on many subjects, from breastfeeding to fitting a car stereo. It's not difiicult to tell if the advice is sound or not - mostly you just need a bit of intelligence.

I would have never dreamed of being as rude to the breastfeeding expert or the mechanic as you are regularly to teachers, and I don't really understand your motivation.Clearly, I am not an expert, as they are, and I bow to their obviously better judgement.

As I said to you the other day, do you habitually visit medical forums and jeer at medical experts?

Both are hilarious, Mrz - thanks for the link!

I did look you up on Amazon and was surprised that you ended up teaching English when your degree is in Phllosophy and Psychology. I woudn't know where to start swapping subjects and teaching P&P when my subject is English, but there you go!

It doesn't matter what people have done if they're talking rubbish. All that matters is what they're saying. There are lots of people who think that because they've taught in a classroom everything that they type is automatically right and that leads them to type things like different tenses have the same meaning and simply assume that because they have typed it then it must be right!!!

Experience and infallibility aren't equivalent I'm afraid.

But you seem to think that most things teachers with vast experience of teaching reading is rubbish.

With your vast experience of teaching...er...one child.

As I said, I wouldn't dream of stomping all over the breastfeeding boards and rubbishing every single thread - as you do - just because I breastfed one child successfully. That's exactly how you come across. And rude with it.

On a public board you're only as good as your last post.

People who find that hard to live with should avoid public boards.

On a public board you're only as good as your last post.

That's ridiculous, frankly.

I don't find it hard to live with - just telling you how you come across to people, and pointing out that no one understands what motivates you to do so.
Strange way to spend one's time, following around people who clearly know what they are talking about, just to pooh pooh them at every given opportunity.

Different tenses have the same meaning is clearly knowing what she's talking about?!! Really?

No, there's an attitude abroad that some years in the classroom gives a woman the right to type any old horse poo into a browser window and claim that it's gospel.

On a public board you're only as good as your last post.

LOL - indeed lands.

Feenie has a point- do you stomp over forums where other professionals post and disagree with everything they say- or do you just have a bee in your bonnet about the teaching of reading, and education?

You seem to have a "thing" about teachers.

It doesn't matter what people have done if they're talking rubbish. I think that's the point people are trying to make learnandsay

Different tenses have the same meaning is clearly knowing what she's talking about?!! Really?

This is a completely ungrammatical " sentence" and does not make any sense.

No, there's an attitude abroad that some years in the classroom gives a woman the right to type any old horse poo into a browser window and claim that it's gospel.

"There's an attitude abroad.."

is this how you speak in RL?

IS English your mother tongue?