Question about Phase 3 Phonics

[TheDuchessOfKidderminster]

What difference is there meant to be between ‘ur’ and ‘er’? I thought they were equivalent sounds but assuming that’s not correct if they’re taught separately at this stage.

It’s a flaw in Letters and Sounds one of many

Right, I won’t give it too much thought then 😊 Is it a mistake or is there some sort of reasoning behind it?

The example they give of corner the spelling er is a Schwa rather than the sound /er/ you would find in her. It seems like a glaring error if not I’m not sure of their rationale.

They're pretty much the same in my accent, I teach them as alternatives for the same sound.

Not sure I follow. Ok, "corner" and "her" are different, but I am not sure what the point is.

The point is that the spelling at the end of corner doesn’t represent the sound /er/ as Letters and Sounds suggests.

MrsCastle I’d teach the er in her as another way to spell the sound /er/ along with ur in hurt, ir in girl, or in word, ear in earth and urr in purr but I would not teach corner or after or mixer

Oh, ok... I shan't be investigating that resource, then ;)

Totally OT, but here we go:
Norest, does the grapheme e-e exist or is it redundant?
Think, say, of "complete" or "eve". Shouldn't be "e-e" or "e" (as in me, be, she) and "ve"/"te" (as in twelve)?

Sorry for the OT. ;)

It depends on your accent. For me the ur in turn and hurt is the same as the ir in bird and third and the er in water, butter and later.

The grapheme e-e is the sound /ee/ in Eve, gene, obsolete, compete, delete Steve, scene, these, theme etc

/ur/ as in /hurt/.

/er/ as in /summer/ so has more of a short /u/ sound rather than a long /'uuuur'/ sound.

Make sense?

/er/ in phase 3 is at the end of example words for L&S.

boxer, supper, rocker etc.

Where we live it is pronounced as a short /u/ sound at the end. We don't emphasise it as an /ur/ sound. It's almost like a cross between an /a/ and /u/ sound TBH.

The technical name for that weak vowel sound at the end of a word is a Schwa banging. It’s the most common vowel sound in English.

Picking up on Arkadia's OT question,

so in 'complete' and 'eve' there are two different ways of decoding these words that use 'known' or standard PGCs.

Eve
/ee/ /v/
spelt 'e' for /ee/ sound (as in he, me, be) and 've' for /v/ sound (as in 'have')
OR / AND
spelt e-e for /ee/ sound and 'v' for /v/ sound.

I see the redundancy Arkadia mentioned. Both ways seem 'correct' for decoding as well as encoding. As in, I can see the word written down and use my knowledge that 'e' sometimes makes the /ee/ sound, and that 've' is a spelling for /v/, to sound it out and blend it correctly. And I can listen to the word, segment it into its sounds, and use my knowledge of those PGCs to encode it/spell it. AND I can do the same by applying two different PGCs namely e-e for /ee/ and v for /v/.

Would a child be told that either way is 'right' (the other wrong)? Is there a reason for preferring one over the other (when both seem 'correct')?
Or is this 'redundancy' just one of those quirks of English spelling?

Exactly my point, brill.
My DD1 was taught both, but, by the teacher's own admission, it caused confusion with the kids. Ok, it was his fault because he mis-decoded "believe" with a "e-e", but still if you have "e" for /ee/ and "be", "te", etc. For /v/, /t/, etc, what is the need for e-e?
Seemingly in the classroom they were wanting to move words around.

Personally I prefer the ve, te, ne etc but it’s usual to teach it as a split digraph e-e (and I’d get rid of “magic e” )