Split diagraph? Or magic e?

[Mehfruittea]

DS YR teacher has told him not to say or use magic e as a way of remembering what the split diagraph does.

He has been told only to use the term Split Diagraph. He's 5. Is this normal? How many grown ups know what this is without looking it up? (Or being a teacher/linguist ).

[9toenails]

My dgc seem to be learning them individually, 'split 'ie'', for instance (sorry, can't do phonetics here), or 'split [whichever diphthong it is]'.

No need for the word 'digraph', it seems. (Question for primary teachers: do you also talk of (non-split, ordinary, or consonantal) digraphs, like 'ch' or 'gh'? I wonder.)

Another question (I'm just interested, but ignorant): do all split digraphs symbolise diphthongs? Examples of ones that represent single vowels?

My opinion on the 'magic e' question, fwiw (very little, I suspect): 'split digraph', every time; much more interesting, at any age!

[lljkk]

The first part of speech therapy is teaching the kids to hear the sounds they didn't hear before. SALT starts with listening for what they weren't able to notice before.

The sounds in "magic e" are simpler to hear.

I have trouble hearing the sounds clearly in a word like "Amelia". I joke that I have dyslexic hearing. I imagine I'd be okay with the SD phrase, but might find it confusing when I was little.

[Tomorrowillbeachicken]

Granted I had a speech impediment as a child.

[Tomorrowillbeachicken]

I am wondering why a four or five year old, in the most part, would have an issue saying split digraph.

[Norestformrz]

They don’t have to say Split digraph just know what it is so speech isn’t an issue

[Norestformrz]

“Unfortunately teachers have been told that this will improve literacy. “ I’m a teacher and you’re the first one to tell me that.
Magic e is misleading because in so many words the e on the end isn’t part of the vowel spelling - give, have, live, come, some, glove, love, so you’ve spent weeks months telling a child that “magic e makes the vowel say it’s name” (still waiting for that one too) and now say sorry but forget that magic e doesn’t apply in these words or that word or that. Why not teach it accurately from the start?

[lljkk]

Jargon... and all the consonant clusters in trying to say "split digraph".. and complicated spelling rules if they saw it written down. Speaking as mother of kids who needed speech therapy. At least they were good at spelling.

[Kokeshi123]

I went to a primary school where we were all taught to read in 3 months flat with no mention of a split digraph.

Every time I see someone insisting that "When I went to school we aaaaaall learned XYZ by [insert unfeasibly young age]," I reach for my skepticism. And a large gin. For decades and decades, around 15-20% of children have consistently failed to learn how to read properly, and even when teaching is spot-on it takes longer than three weeks to master the basic code.

I don't see how "split digraph" is any more jargon-y than "magic e"? They both have the same number of syllables, so why is one harder than the other? Children understand "split digraph" just fine.

[jamdonut]

Con dear... Didn't realise I'd previously commented on this back in May!

[jamdonut]

Deffo 'split digraph' . No 'magic e ' in Read ,Write Inc.

[StepAwayFromCake]

Even as a child, 'Magic E' used to annoy me, as it's not just E that changes the sound of the preceding vowel. How about BACON and BAKING? Why do you have to double the last consonant when changing PREP to PREPPING?

So calling it Split-vowel Digraph makes sense, even though it's a clunky name.

[DevonViolet78]

It's bonkers. What use is metalanguage like this to a 5 year old? Unfortunately teachers have been told that this will improve literacy. As the threads on Mumsnet illustrate that adults have difficulty getting their heads round these terms and that there are many anomalies and exceptions, learning terms like this is a waste of time. If all parents read with their children, if children were encouraged to visit libraries and see books as a source of enjoyment, children would acquire literacy more easily. However, it's easy and cheap to assess terminology and there are plenty of IT firms out there who are happy to oblige by selling their tests. I went to a primary school where we were all taught to read in 3 months flat with no mention of a split digraph. If anyone can demonstrate that children learn to read faster by knowing this, I'd be fascinated to see the evidence. (I tutor a linguistics course in a university so have some knowledge of this topic.)

[Allthebestnamesareused]

When DS now 15 was in reception they learnt about "split diagraph" and called it that. Indeed it was the first time I had heard of the term itself (because we ere taught differently in the olden days). They are just words so if that is how he is taught that is what he will know.

[BarbarianMum]

My children enjoyed 'magic e'. Split diagraph is so dull and functional.

[GetTheGoodLookingGuy]

We call them "special friends who aren't allowed to sit together", but the kids also know they're split diagraphs, and they also watch quite a lot of alphablocks very useful at hometime when the teacher and TA both need to hear readers so they know magic E from that. It was definitely magic E when I was at school.

[BlondeB83]

Also Read Write Inc. A friend on the end!

[BlondeB83]

My year 1 class and the top groups in reception all know what a split digraph is.

[jamdonut]

We use the term 'split digraph', the children know exactly what it is. We do Read ,Write,Inc at our school. There is a little story that goes with teaching those sounds, to help the children remember.

[user789653241]

My ds knows the term "magic e" as well as SD, he says somebody mentioned it and knows they are talking about similar/same things.
I wasn't bothered because I didn't know what he was talking about in the first place, and I resigned from helping him with any literacy related work being a foreigner, but Mum not knowing terms school/children use didn't have any negative effect on him,
I agree with cat, no big deal.

[AuntieStella]

Well, I know the term..

And I should think every under-11 (maybe older than that too) does too.

A term unfamiliar to an adult isn't inherently harder to learn than the one they learned.

Best practice and best terminology moves on. It cannot be fossilised as what the older generation used when there is no actual reason so to do.

[MrsPnut]

My children know them as split digraphs.

MiniPnut aged about 5 announced very loudly in the supermarket that wine is a split digraph

[mrz]

"It's just a term with a bit of fairy-dust about it to make it memorable to small children. No big deal." I'm going to start calling zero magic nought because it changes one into ten ...fairy dust

[Witchend]

[catkind]

Well it makes sense to call them whatever school are calling them. DS's school talked about digraphs and trigraphs from reception, so it made sense that they called them split digraphs. There's no reason for 5 yr olds not to learn the term, they learn new words every day.

I don't see the problem with using magic-e in general though. I was on the previous thread and couldn't make any logical sense of the objections. It's just a term with a bit of fairy-dust about it to make it memorable to small children. No big deal.