How is "pull" a phase 2 word?

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We have the Jelly and Bean phonic book set, which consistently lists "pull" as a Phase 2 word.

In my world "u" is pronounced as per the start of "umbrella" and "up".

But that pronunciation means that "pull" doesn't come out correctly when sounded out.

I get that different areas areas have different accents (I'm in South London). Is it an accent issue? Is there a part of the country where "pull" can be sounded out using Phase 2 sounds?

Yes I'm Nottinghamshire and here pull works as a phase 2. Just had to really think about it to see why it wouldn't! Definitely a regional thing but if it doesn't work in your region then I wouldn't be teaching it there as a phase 2 word.

Sorry didn't read properly it's a book not school. So yes it's just a regional variation, there are a few like that.

Yes, that one confused me as well! Push and pull are definitely not phase 2 words in my accent.

Another one struggling to see how pull wouldn't be a phase 2 word, umbrella, up and pull all have the same /u/ sound to me!
Aren't accents wonderful! I have a northern accent, my TA a southern one, we would share some phonemes out between us! Bath and grass were mine!

In my accent it is def phase 2 sound.
But I have friends from near London who would say it different.

Like but and put.

For me - they rhyme

For them - they don't rhyme

I didn't believe it til I actually got them to say the words together. Def not same u sound in the two words - vey odd for me though.

If teaching it I guess you introduce the sound by saying that "the letter u is code for this sound ... and also this sound ..."

Ime children usually cope quite well with this and it is how we teach them that sometimes the same combination of letters can be code for different sounds in different words.

the /u/ in a southern accent is a phase 5 sound ... [even more convinced those phases are ill considered]

I do think parents struggle with the concept more than children do!

Haha...a Londoner here trying to day pull out loud and trying to make the u an u as in up. I can't do it?!

That's odd. For me, pull and bull rhyme with each other but not with cull, as in badger cull. Cull would have the same sound as up or umbrella but pull has a longer 'u' sound. That might be why it's seen as a phase 2 word.

Thanks everyone. Yes, for me pull rhymes with bull but not (badger) cull.

And the u sound taught in Phase 2 for me is the one in cull. Which is the same as in umbrella.

At least I've clarified it for myself. I'm not a teacher but a parent trying to compensate for the poor reading teaching at school. Ours is one that 'does' Jolly Phonics enthusiastically at school but then sends home all kinds of random reading books which vary between ancient look and say books like Ginn or phonic books with content way in advance of the sounds they've covered so far.

Tee hee, pull bull and cull all rhyme for me! I've no idea how they can't! :o Will my friend who was born in Essex be able to shed light on the difference between them?

How interesting, my experience of the phonemes the girls are coming home with are that they are all Southern English. Like the so called silent r after a vowel, not in my accent it isn't. Or the two different pronounciations of 'oo'. Don't remind me of that after a glass of wine, I can spend hours saying book, cook, look, school, WHAT'S THE BLOODY DIFFERENCE?????

Personally I think it's cultural imperialism. How dare school tell my children to say words a certain way and deny the variations in accents.

all letters are silent so why are schools teaching bliddy silent r!!
Schools should not be telling your child how to say words that's elocution NOT phonics!

I say book, cook, look (with an /u/) and school and BLOODY with an /oo/

Bloody with an /oo/? That's just strange! Bloody surely has to be /u/?

I had a similar problem with /ure/ - I know that it is sometimes taught as one phoneme, but for me it can be /or/ (sure) /er/ (treasure, measure) or 'yer' (cure, pure). I just can't hear how it's 'supposed' to sound.

Bloody with an /oo/? That's just strange! I agree it's strange but it's what I do.

Ah, this explains why my of-Northern origin DH keeps sounding out u as in put and not as in putt like I would. It drives me mental when he's sounding out a word to DS1 but makes an ou sound (I think he sounds like a monkey!) and not the uh sound I would expect. I couldn't understand why he was saying it so wrong but although his accent is virtually gone there must be some residual effect. Must stop shouting at him like he's an idiot

laughing because we are having exactly the same problem with exactly the same books...Jelly and Bean woman is certainly not from SE London...(though I'm more concerned that the current book features a drowning dog, but my dd doesn't seem worried)

See I'm reading this and thinking you're all barmy! They all sound the same to me: put, pull, push, umbrella, cook, book. They all have /u/ no matter how many times I say it. Must be because I'm Northern I guess!

How does 'pull' sound to you guys? I can't even think how it might sound

While I'm here, I have another phonics question. DD has had a book home from school - Songbirds stage 2 I think - The odd pet. It has the word "have" in it. Do we sound out h a v and just ignore the 'e'? So h/a/ve? Why is the 'e' there? I can't explain it to her. Not like the 'e' in "came" for example which changes the 'a' sound.

Why is the 'e' there?
Because in the early days of printing (1476 onwards), typesetters were paid by the line, and so they liked to make words longer (olde, worlde, shoppe, inne, itte, hadde, mennie, fissche).

The pamphleteers of the English Civil War (1642-9) wanted to squeeze the maximum of information onto a single page and so dropped most of them again.

Unfortunately they did not make a clean sweep of it and those that they did not get rid of are with us still.

I would explain it as the /v/ sound as the end of words is often written as 've'. That should help with other words as well e.g. give, love, live, glove etc.

The /u/ in 'pull' is similar north and south I think. It's the 'u' in everything else that's different. If you're in the south try sounding out 'up' and 'umbrella' using the sound the 'u' makes in pull rather than the other way round.

Regional differences in pronunciation affect mainly just three areas:

1. short a and ar, 2. short u and short oo 3. long oo

1. pant - plant (plarnt in S). Also:

Advanced, after, ah, ask, banana, bath, blast, branch, brass, calf, calm, castle, chance, chant, class, craft, daft, dance, disaster, draft, fast, fasten, father, flabbergast, flask, gasp, ghastly, giraffe, glance, glass, graft, graph, grasp, grass, half, last, mask, mast, palm, panorama, pass, past, path, plant, pyjamas, raft, rascal, rather, salami, shaft, shah, staff, task, trance, vase, vast.

1. dull, gull - full, pull

(These have the same sound for some midlanders and people further N)

For most speakers of English (right across the world) only these have a short /oo/ sound:

Good, hood, stood, wood. Book, brook, cook, hook, look, rook, shook, took. Wool. Whoosh. Foot.

Could, should, would.
Bull, full, pull, bullet, bullion. Bush, cushion, push, shush. Cuckoo.

Put, butcher, pudding, pussy, sugar.
Wolf, woman.

Courier.

1. The length of long /oo/ , as in 'pool, school, rule' varies a little between accents, an in some parts of US ue/ew and oo, in dew and do, sound the same.

Actually I find accents fascinating generally.

When I venture 'down south' (not often) I cannot order a coke in my usual accent, as they can't tell what I'm saying. To their ears I am saying c/ur/k but to me they are saying c/oh/k or sometimes c/oi/k. I was once given coors in a pub .

I guess I will just tell dd that /ve/ is the same as /v/ in the word have for the time being. Not sure she'd be too interested in the English civil war at 4 yrs old!

I'm intrigued that so many people can't actually imagine how a word would sound in a different accent.