My mother's horrifed, but I think it's brilliant!

[manchestermummy]

Reception DD1 came home with a piece of work about her favourite game:

The duc duc goos I luv the best.

My mother is disgusted and thinks it's appalling she's not being taught to spell properly, but I think it's ridiculously cute and I am so proud of her.

Bit of a stealth boast, but there you go

Seriously, this is okay, isn't it? It's very neat.

"This is why there is criticism of the use of phonics to teach englsih - it just doesn't help for so many words." such as?

So ronaldo what you are saying is a child should not speak until he or she can form proper sentences and pronounce everything correctly. How does one correct a 21 month old that says dada nor daddy or ganma instead of grandma? How do you teach them to form sentences?

The problem with jabed's method is that some children will stick to simple words they can spell in their independent writing rather than try more ambitious vocabulary.

I think it takes on average longer for a British child to learnt to read and write because they start so much earlier.

No. A major cross-European study (Seymour et al, 2003) investigated this and found that English literacy acquisition takes longer because of its spelling, not because of the earlier starting age.

As a language, English is easy for foreigners because it has almost no grammar, in comparison to others.

www.videojug.com/film/how-to-play-duck-duck-goose

It is a traditional children's game and a variation on games such as In and out the Dusty Bluebells and I wrote a letter to my love

So ronaldo what you are saying is a child should not speak until he or she can form proper sentences and pronounce everything correctly. How does one correct a 21 month old that says dada nor daddy or ganma instead of grandma? How do you teach them to form sentences?

I do not teach English and will only speak for my own approach with my own DS. We ( DW and self) always made/ make sure we correct our DS's language - so " ganma" , we would repeat the correct pronunciation of "grandma" for him to try again - put it was never pushed beyond that.

If you continue with correct pronunciation it is a way of ensuring that a DC will reflect and repeat and so become skilled. Same with everything.

As it happens I do not really recall my DS having too much trouble with speaking properly even when very young.
However we speak correctly in our house. We always speak in sentences and we have always used received pronunciation ( ducking here as this is an argument I have had on education in general before). We also use that old fashioned thing "elaborated code"

I do believe firmly that it is important that one speaks to ones DC in correct English from the start as well.

mrz - you know how old I am! I can genuinely say that I have played a few playground games in my time ( all real tradditional ones) but that is a new one on me. Whatever happened to "The Farmer wants a Wife" ( not PC these days?) amd "tag"? ( the Safetly Elf?). Looks from the video to be one of those games primary school teachers have made up to play in gym.

The Farmer Wants a Wife, Tag, What Time is it Mr Wolf are all playground favourites jabed but obviously not the OP's childs choice.

Did you never play "In and Out the Dusty Bluebells" as a child jabed?

Ah well, there's the thing, I find it important to preserve my local dialect, RP is outdated and "correct english" well I'm not even sure what that is.
My ds can call my mother whatever he likes, I'm not going to drill him on pronunciation not at this age. I have no idea if ds might have a speech impediment. My sister did and her frustrations at constantly being corrected were clear for all to see. She eventually stopped talking altogether. I wouldn't do that to a child. It wasn't my parents correcting her it was "outsiders". She then started seeing a SALT at school when she was six and hasn't shut up since :o

You're not so fussed about punctuation, though, Ronaldo?

Quite the opposite. Pronunciation ( giving way to age appropriateness) should be accutate too. If you speak correctly, you will ( mostly) spell correctly. Many of the mistakes young ( and older) children make with spelling are a result of regional accents and poor pronunciation in my experience.

If you say "wiv" rather than "with" - of course you wont spell it properly. Stands to common sense ( which unfortunately is not so very common in education these days).

Learning to speak is a natural progression of ability, and from watching parents, they do actually correct their child's pronunciation and encourage them to say the word correctly. I doubt that many parents would encourage incorrect pronunciation, apart from the odd word.

With my own ds, aged 4, he has two serious speech disorders, and following his speech therapist's advice, we do gently encourage correct pronunciation.

*Did you never play "In and Out the Dusty Bluebells" as a child jabed?"

No, sorry mrz, never heard of it. I played tag. I played " The Farmer......" I played Wolf and " Aunts and Uncles" and " Film Stars" ( now there is a good one for learning to spell!). "There's a Fire on the Hill" was a "picking " game

• all playground games not ones interfered with by teachers. Mostly I remember just running around a lot and playing things like cowboys and indians and soldiers.

You're not so fussed about punctuation, though, Ronaldo?

Quite the opposite. Pronunciation

sorry several typos above. Accurate is one I saw a moment ago. Old, fat, slightly cold fingers do not type well

Oh punctuation. I dont personally bother here. If I am handwriting its different.

You also know my age and I played In and Out the Dusty Bluebells as a child as did my aunt who was born in 1909 so it's very much a traditional playground game very similar to Duck, Duck, Goose

And should we get into handwriting too? I taught my DS "Marion Richardson"

I dont want to be sexist but might it be more a girls game mrz? You know how we were in the 1960's!

In a school with only 30 pupils there were no boys or girls games just games jabed

Duck duck goose is a real traditional game. There are references back to 1700s.
We played it in the playground and I am 50 along with kiss chase, What's the time Mr Wolf, games that involved the letters of our names and plenty of others none where anything to do with teachers interfering.

I was taught Marion Richardson handwriting at primary school and we teach our pupils a very similar style (actually the DH's own handwriting style).