Why don't we use 'magic e' any more?

[Pozzled]

And is it a problem if my child is taught in that way? I'm not very impressed (especially when I've already taught her 'split digraph') but want to know if it really matters.

Of course. My pupils would think I was bonkers if I affected an RP accent, whilst trying to convince them to try to pronounce "pool" and "pull" differently, or "whether" and "weather" identically! They already think it's pretty funny when I say "tube" correctly, rather than just "choob".

Accents do present a problem when trying to associate letters/digraphs with sounds. I don't think the issue is one of trying to get a child (or adult either, for that matter) to pronounce a word without the local accent. Instead, the issue is to get him to think of the word without the local accent, both for spelling purposes, and to make sense of the spelling of the word within the phonic structure. This would be preferable, for example, to introducing the letter "t" as an acceptable spelling of the /ch/ sound in "choob" (tube). Better to think of "choob" as "tube" when spelling it.

Beyond that, it seems to me that retaining a strong local accent can hold back a person later in life if it's perceived to be a sign of poor education. Teaching a child to pronounce words in a more broadly-accepted accent is both possible, and in many cases, desirable. Going with "choob" for "tube" later in life could close some doors in the future, I would think.

Rod Everson

P.S. Earlier in this thread I apparently violated the terms prohibiting advertising in posts. I wasn't aware that one isn't supposed to link to relevant information on one's own website. The intent wasn't to advertise a product, but rather to share what I'd already written, but I'll avoid such links in the future and I apologize for any irritation I caused.

Dear Rod
I also had to learn the lesson about not linking to my own material, or even mentioning it, the way u did.
And some time ago, I also made much the same statement about accents as u have above and was abused for it by some posters.
But isn't the desire to prevent children picking up the local accent, or have it trained out of them, one of the main reasons why many parents pay to have their children privately educated?

Euphemia my apologies, but other posters have confused the two. And as ITA and IPA are nothing like each other (except for including symbols not in the usual alphabet) I did read as another example.

And it's an important point, as it is what means that phonics (based on phonemes) does work across all accents (differences phonetic).

As RodEverson points out, without phonemic awareness, decoding is impossible.

Scaevola

ITA is a more consistent way of spelling English, but with some letters which are not on the normal keyboard. None of the long vowels were spelt with 'magic e' but with one symbol for them, a bit like we do with ee, oo and ou, but joined together (maed, biet, noet, tueb).

Many schools used ITA for the first year of literacy teaching in the late 60s and early 70s, in the belief that if children grasped the idea of using an alphabetic code with regular, easier spellings, they would be able to cope more easily with the irregularities of English spelling afterwards. It enabled children to make much better progress during that first year, but when they had to switch to normal spelling in their second year, many regressed severely, particularly in writing. (Many secondary teachers now claim that too much phonics is having the same effect on spelling.)

The ITA experiment proved that children would learn to read and write more easily and much faster if English spelling was made more regular, if it was properly modernised. But using a regular system for a year and then switching back to traditional spelling is unhelpful.

Phonics refers to the code between the written language and the phonemes of spoken language.
Mastering that code is the way to escape word-by-word rote learning.

That works well with reliable codes, like Finnish, Spanish or Italian. Learning to spell English necessitates much word-by-word rote learning of spellings because several sounds have highly unreliable codes,
e.g. air: care, bear, there, their; ee: seek, speak, shriek, seize, concede...

At least 3,700 common English words have such unpredictable letters in them.

Yes I know ITA is a phonemically regular way of rendering a language into 'regular' written form. It is however disastrous in producing competent readers of the written English language as it actually is.

Spelling reform is a whole different topic. And for children learning to read now, not a relevant one.

And you don't need to "rote learn" variant spellings such as those you list.

You do need to learn which part of the phonic code applies, and that's not the same as when rote learning genuinely applies (whole word approach, or in character-based languages such as Chinese).

very trivial question - but am I the only one who has "bossy e", rather than "magic e"? DS is in Reception and had to move school during the year as we moved area but both schools called it "bossy e - makes the letter say its name". Same as magic e obviously.

This would be preferable, for example, to introducing the letter "t" as an acceptable spelling of the /ch/ sound in "choob" (tube). Better to think of "choob" as "tube" when spelling it.

Well, that's interesting, Rod, because in GB English words like 'picture' and 'feature' are commonly said with the 't' as a /ch/. 'Choob' sounds unusual to GB English ears because we don't say 't' as /ch/ at the beginning of words, but the Scots (who the poster was referring to) do.

I am always very wary of Phonics being used as 'elocution lessons' though I do encourage "Say it in a 'spelling voice" for words where pronunciation and spelling have diverged very dramatically.

I pronounce it Choob and chuesday etc. I don't know anyone who says tube!

Well, that's interesting, Rod, because in GB English words like 'picture' and 'feature' are commonly said with the 't' as a /ch/. 'Choob' sounds unusual to GB English ears because we don't say 't' as /ch/ at the beginning of words, but the Scots (who the poster was referring to) do.

I am always very wary of Phonics being used as 'elocution lessons' though I do encourage "Say it in a 'spelling voice" for words where pronunciation and spelling have diverged very dramatically.

Hi maizie,

Taking your last point first, why be "wary of Phonics being used as 'elocution lessons'"? Someone else made the point that we send kids to school to become educated. Certainly, learning to pronounce words in a more broadly accepted form should be part of any decent education. This is in no way meant to denigrate a local accent, but that's what they are, local. Once outside the local area, retaining a local accent will definitely serve many people poorly, especially if they attempt to get work in certain fields requiring a lot of verbal communication with customers or strangers.

As to words like "picture" and "feature," and I would add, "statue," I long ago decided in my curriculum to not treat these as pic-cher, fea-cher, and sta-chew. Ironically, it was a British contributor to a forum who convinced me. Instead, she maintained that both "ture" and "tue" should be thought offor both spelling, and for understanding their phonics structure, but not for speakingas having long-u sounds (which I indicate as /ue/, as in the word "cute".)

Since then I have always taught "statue" as sta-/t/ue/, and "stature" as sta-/t/ue/r/, and have explained to every child that the precise pronunciation of these two endings is a bit of a tongue twister, but that they should think of them in that manner for spelling purposes. This simplifies matters by gently forcing the pronunciation of those endings into already-taught code. Ditto for words like "fortune" (for-/t/ue/n/).

In fact, as I think it over, it's actually the /ue/ sound that complicates the pronunciation of "ture," "tue," and, I suppose, the British "tube." In the U.S., we've converted the long-u to an /oo/ sound in words like "tube" and "tune" and say "toob" and "toon" instead to avoid the tongue-twisting.

The /ue/ sound is a dipthong ending in the /oo/ sound, but the onset of that dipthong is difficult to pronounce after certain consonant sounds, like /t/ and also /d/, so /t/+/ue/ tends toward /ch/oo/, and /d/+/ue/ tends toward /j/oo/, just because of how the onset of the /ue/ sound pulls our jaw forward. At least that's how it feels to me.

Rod

I pronounce it Choob and chuesday etc. I don't know anyone who says tube!

I think this discussion illustrates the difficulty of discussing accents in print, without being able to hear what we're actually saying.

I'm betting that you're pronouncing "tube" with a long-u sound and are attempting to say: /t/ue/b/, which comes out more easily as "choob", whereas I pronounce "tube" as "toob," converting the u-e split digraph into an /oo/ sound in some words, as do most Americans. Two different approaches to the same problem, i.e., that /t/ue/b/ is somewhat difficult to articulate.

When teaching an American child the phonics code, I always present the /ue/ sound first, and then the /oo/ sound, since over here every spelling of /ue/ (u as in unit, u-e as in cute, ue as in cute, and ew as in few) can also represent /oo/ sounds (truth, tune, clue, and chew are all pronounced with /oo/ here, not /ue/). I then instruct the child to always try the /ue/ option first, for they will automatically default into the actual pronunciation when the /ue/ sound is difficult to say, but the reverse is not true.

Thus, "tune" pronounced with a long-u will easily default to our typical pronunciation, toon. The reverse is not true. If a child tries the /oo/ sound first, "cute" will come out "coot" and sometimes, as with "coot," the result is a real word. In the grand scheme of things it's a minor issue, but add enough minor issues up and you can get a mess. Like telling a child an ending "e" is "magic," or "silent," or even "bossy" as someone else has mentioned. (Which is where this all started.)

Think about that for a minute. A child being taught to read by two parents and two grandparents simultaneously could be being told four separate explanations for the ending "e" (It's bossy, silent, magic, or a split spelling of a digraph you've already learned.) The real failure of English phonics instruction is the failure to standardize instruction, as amply illustrated by the various controversies that have arisen in this thread.

Rod

At least 3,700 common English words have such unpredictable letters in them.

I agree, Masha, that English spellings are "unpredictable" at least in the sense that there are many words that can't be spelled correctly just by listening to the sounds and converting them to associated spellings. However, statements like you made above are routinely made by others to discourage phonics instruction by implying that it's a futile effort.

But English spellings are hardly random. Nearly every English word is 100% spelled by an acceptable pronunciation of a limited number of letters and digraphs. Teach a child the acceptable pronunciations for each letter and digraph, and he will be able to learn most of his eventual reading vocabulary on his own.

There are probably less than a few dozen words that have spellings unusual enough to confuse a child who has been taught the phonics code in a good phonics curriculum, the word "eye" being a prime example.

Rod