'Silent' e

[Asleeponasunbeam]

I don't know how to tackle this. My DD (y1) is talking about 'silent e' when she is reading. She was just reading phonics reading books at the right level (just moving into phase 5) so this wasn't a problem (as there were no words with these graphemes in the books).

Now she wants to read her own books, which is great, but is spotting these spellings and saying 'there's a silent e'.

I don't teach 'silent e' (I'm a teacher) and teach eg 'le' in 'little' or 'ce' in 'peace' as an alternative spelling for the sound 'l' or 's'.

DD thinks her teacher is the fount of all knowledge (as did I! I wonder if this is coming from a parent helper?) so won't accept my explanation.

Any thoughts on how I could be tactful about this at parents' evening next week?

Could it be magic e she means

She's certainly getting confused with 'magic e' and 'spotting' them as 'silent e' too. She's sort of accepting the 'split e' explanation for that. Must be hearing 'silent e' somewhere.

I was taught about "silent e", and look at me, reading your OP!

Your way works for you, but other teachers have other ways, and I think you are going to have to trust your DD's teacher in this, unless, of course, DD really starts falling behind, in which case you will need to intervene, as then you would know that the teacher's methods are not working for your child.

IME, teachers are usually receptive to different methods if one isn't working for your child.

I would want the teacher's methods to be 'working' well before my DD started 'falling behind'!

If she thinks 'silent e' and 'magic e' (I don't like this either) then she will have difficulty.

If she thinks they're the same thing, I mean!

Okay, I didn't mean falling behind, I meant if it's really not working for her.

If she has trouble with a particular word, and can't understand your explanation, just pop a note in her reading diary to say she struggled with sounding out "peace", or whatever.

I know it's hard to back off, sometimes. I have a maths degree, and sometimes find the way my DC are taught things in maths to be ridiculously long winded and difficult. But I have to back off, and assume they will get there in the end, as I did.

It's probably come from a parent helper, because I've told children about magic e before when I help in my sons school. And sometimes it helps them to be told that magic e can make the last vowel say its name! It's not a replacement reading technique, it's an additional reading technique. I taught both my sons to read when they were four and five, they both learned about magic e, and they both read very very well.

I'm not saying you have no right to be concerned,I'm saying watch and wait.

I'm not sure if I like the sound of parent helpers explaining 'an additional reading technique' - surely that person should report back to the teacher that the child struggled with xyz ?

OP I would just ask the teacher at parent's evening. You could 'tactfully' say that you need to know how she/he is teaching this to avoid confusion for dd.

Asleep:

I think the first issue may be to accept that there clearly is more than one way to teach this - and determine if how your child is being taught is working for her (not you). This may be difficult as you clearly are a teacher and have your own views through your experiences/ training which may be at odds with the teacher (?younger & newly trained). Personally I abhor horizontal calculations - I think it's really tricky for new mathematicians - but understood that it was a part of a process to make decomposing numbers (mentally adding tens and units and then adding those together) and could see that was useful. DD2 had no problem with it - DD1 absolutely floundered.

Second - I think you need to tread very carefully about 'blaming' parental helpers. They're volunteering their time and mean well. Now maybe a parent volunteer is regularly working with your child - but maybe not. Certainly as a parent - I was never very clear about whether this was happening or not with my kids - and the school studiously avoided spelling it out to us.

Third - Magic 'e'/ Silent 'e' may not be your 'cup' of tea but it is how shows like alphablocks teach it: - my understanding is that Jolly Phonics call this same concept (e at the end of the word making the vowel long - i.e. hat becomes hate) - but it is a term that is out there and our children see on tv/ BBC bitesize/ etc....

So I guess what I'm trying to say is regardless of what your child is calling this and whether you like the term (and boy could I write a book about imprecise mathematical terms in primary school!) - I think the real issue is whether whatever phonetic system your child is learning to read with is working. If she's progressing & improving - is it really a problem if she uses terms like 'magic e'/ 'silent e'.

So - if you're child is pointing out words like gate or plate and being excited that it's a 'silent e' or 'magic e' word - if he/ she is 'getting it' & correctly pronouncing the long vowel sound does it really matter what it's called?

A rose is a rose by any other name - Gertrude Stein.

Thanks for all your thoughts!

I'll mention it to teacher to see how they're doing it.

But she's not getting it right! Gate is 'gat because it's a silent e' is not helpful!

Doesn't she mean a silent 'e' as in gave, have, game...?

All letters are silent! Just put your ear to the page!

I can see Asleep's problem as the concept is interfering with effective decoding and her DD doesn't seem to be learning the flexible approach needed to cope with the fact that an 'e' on the end of a word can either influence the previous vowel sound or be part of the final consonant spelling.

Lots of children have been absolutely fine with the 'magic e' concept but it can lead to confusion if children get the impression that every word ending in 'e' has a long vowel sound. To mix it up with 'silent e' as well makes it even more difficult for some children to learn!

I'll be interested to hear what her teacher says

m.youtube.com/watch?v=7TKDcHEcE8Q

Thanks Maizie. I wasn't explaining myself very clearly. That's exactly my concern.

I do actually think it's an important matter of curriculum policy. We would be strung up if we were heard saying this at our school. Obviously DD's school does have different guidelines (and most of these are the reason she is there and not with me!), but they also need to be followed consistently.

I make no criticism of parent helpers. But I would criticise a policy that allows untrained ones to teach reading!

Asleep:

I can see your problem more clearly and agree there is a difference between a 'magic e' functioning to make a long vowel: hat + e making hate for example

and a silent 'e' function in a word like candle (which has the ah like can pronunctiation of a instead of a long A like cane) or love (which is a very different pronunctiation from a word like cove).

however - silent 'e' is used interchangeably with magic 'e' - e.g. alphablocks video link above - also Jolly phonics is using silent 'e' now apparently - so this may just be a case of a teacher using bought in materials with this terminology (and maybe both terms used interchangeably).

I think what is worth raising is your child's confusion - as they may not be the only one in the class that has learned the special term but doesn't understand how magic 'e' functions properly. I suspect your child won't be the only confused one.

Still think it's unlikely that a parent volunteer would impose their own terminology - usually they're given pretty clear guidance on what to do - which, at least around here, tends to be just helping sound out and listening to be honest. We (because I too have helped out) tend to feel we should follow the teacher's lead. So I suspect this is coming from the phonics package the school has bought into and the teacher's training background.

Having said that - certainly silent 'e' (using US terminology) is often the next logical step after learning how to decode simple three letter/ one syllable words like cat or win. (UPenn has prepared this for example: www.ling.upenn.edu/pri/pdfs/rr3.pdf & www.ling.upenn.edu/pri/pdfs/rr4.pdf & worksheets: www.ling.upenn.edu/pri/pdfs/rr3worksheets.pdf

HTH

it is a 'split' digraph (digraph= 2 letters making 1 sound) because the split e makes the vowel change from a short sound to the long sound e.g.

c|o|p
c-o-pe

she should know what a digraph is in y1 but maybe just say it is a tricky word and tell her what it is until school approaches it?

and you saying 'phase 5' makes me think she is following the letters and sounds scheme, pretty sure this comes right at the end of p5 so she will be a term or 2 away from learning it!

I would just say it was a tricky word and get her to memorise it if she can

oh bloody hell I need to rtft sorry...

thought you were asking how to teach it.. read someone elses comment as your op!

It's not that I try to teach reading, I certainly don't. But, you see, I read with eight and nine year olds. When a child still can't decode some basic phonics at nine, and the Senco is a lazy little twat, and you went to school with the kids mum and you KNOW she just cannot help him - you'll kind of try anything to get the ball rolling with the 'click' of reading.

And he DID understand it, and used it appropriately.

Trying anything can cause latter problems unfortunately.

I think you need to speak to the teacher ... it may be coming from them and not a parent helper.

Thanks. I think it's coming from PPA cover teacher (from what DD said tonight). I'll follow it up with regular teacher.

Slight derailment but what do you advise saying (if anything) to a massive Alphablocks fan (he got given the DVDs) who does indeed now know (or is starting to) about magic e etc from this when his school will teach him split digraphs eventually but possibly not for a while (he's in reception).

I don't want to set him up for later confusion certainly! Just let it pass for now, or mention that his teacher will call it something else? He is getting to the stage where he is trying to read road signs etc plus sadly his school still has look and say reading books so it will come up in contexts other than just on the tv sadly and I don't know whether to just tell him the words he can't decode or explain the bits of the words he can't decode - and if the latter by which method!

I'd mention that the teacher might call it something else but it's the same thing. Like 2 cats might have different names but they are still cats...

As for telling him words? If he understands that there can be more than one way to spell a 'sound' (though it might be a bit early for this) just tell him 'this is another way to spell the x sound and you will learn about later'. Then he can sound out the word.

If not, just tell him the word for the time being, but don't let him get reliant on you to 'tell' him words which he does have enough phonic knowledge to read.

It's a bit 'play it by ear' and what you think your child will be best with.

I'm a year 1 teacher and we've only just taught long A / a split diagraph this week, we're on week 4 of phase 5 so it might be she just hasn't quite covered split diagraphs yet. We also don't call it magic e as if Ofsted come in they want the children to know the correct terms! A lot of mine are still saying 'gat' instead of 'gate' though as the concept hasn't quite embedded yet!