Schwa sound, how (if at all) is it taught? (For teachers and experts in general)

[Arkadia]

For my benefit, are schwas taught at all in England, within the teaching of phonics I mean.
If yes, how is the subject tackled?
If no, how do you overcome it when learning to spell?

[Arkadia]

@BertieBotts, sorry if my remark came across as supercilious. It was genuinely meant ;)

[supersonictraveller]

"Interesting to see that, thinking about myself as a NON native speaker of English, I was NEVER taught any of that, but gosh, wouldn't that have been good to know, so it would have spared me years of agony trying to make myself understood :D"

I am a non native too, and it was a big focus on learning English, stressed quite often, since the sound doesn't exist in my native language.

[User198174]

Arkadia raises an interesting point about what she calls "random" extra schwa vowels being added by some Scottish accents in words such as film (which becomes fill-uh-m.)
There is an interesting reason behind this. The Gaelic language is full of these extra schwa sounds (for instance the Gaelic word for Scotland, Alba, is pronounced Al-uh-ba). This extra sound is known as a Swarabakhti vowel or vokal, and was a feature of Sanskrit, or Ancient Hindi. Gaelic, as an ancient Indo-European language, has retained this feature.

Most parts of Scotland were Gaelic-speaking (not just Highlands and Islands, but Fife, Dumfries and Galloway, Ayrshire, Angus etc etc). Sadly some people can be snobbish about it (not saying you were, Arkadia), but to me it's a fascinating insight into our descent from Proto-Indo-European!

[User198174]

For more info on the schwa/ Svarabakhti vowel and modern Scottish Gaelic, click here.

www.akerbeltz.org/index.php?title=Svarabhakti_or_The_Helping_Vowel

[Norestformrz]

We say filum in County Durham so I'm not sure how that fits with Gaelic

[Norestformrz]

This is from the program we use in school ...

[Arkadia]

@norestformrz, Appendix C too, please ;)

[Lougle]

That's really interesting. I can see why DD3 is misspelling some of the trickier words in this way (she's generally a good speller).

DD2 has awful spelling, though and she doesn't seem to be able to 'hear' the sounds in words, even when I say each sound really slowly. She's sometimes has completely random consonants in her words, or some sounds completely missed out.

[Norestformrz]

.

[mathanxiety]

I can't see how you can present a phonics approach to spelling, but divorce it from its most common sound. It is like teaching the alphabet doing away with the letter "a", or teach numeracy without the zero.

You are absolutely correct in your conclusion.

English does not lend itself easily to the phonetic approach.

Those who insist it can are actually twisting the meaning of the word 'phonetic' well past the point of ridiculousness.

[mathanxiety]

User198174, the Swarabakhti vowel is found in Gaeilge (Irish) too, and therefore on Hiberno English.

It used to be more common but RTE English and exposure to American and British English through media have had an effect on Hiberno English over the decades.

[Norestformrz]

No one claims it's easy but the alternative is illiteracy

[Arkadia]

Thanks, @norestformrz.

According to Wikipedia examples of timed stressed languages are:
English, Thai, German, Russian, Danish, Swedish, Catalan, Norwegian, Faroese, Dutch, European Portuguese.
I know a Danish speaker and I know people who live in the Netherlands, so I could ask them.
However, maybe someone here speaks one or more of those languages and can enlighten us on how they deal with vowel reduction.

[mathanxiety]

But very easy and quite instinctive to explain well that although that word looks like/is spelled tom-ah-toe, that's the same word that we pronounce "tum-ah-toe", without necessarily needing to explain schwa.
Bertie


You have highlighted the relationship between familiarity with vocabulary and split-second recognition of the written word that contributes to learning to read and spell. Much of what advocates of phonics are talking about is the mechanical act of decoding, which of course is important, but there is far more to reading than sounding out. There are feedback mechanisms of the sort you describe, and there is visual recognition of word shapes.

This is essentially why a wide spoken vocabulary is essential to children as they approach the formal learning environment. It is why children aged 3-4 with a small vocabulary hardly ever succeed in school beyond the level where decoding will suffice as an approach to reading.

It is estimated that by the time deprived children in the US reach kindergarten (aged 5) they will have heard 30 million fewer words than children from better off homes.
www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/10/american-kids-are-starving-for-words/381552/

There is a case to be made for essentially teaching English as a second language for some children who have been exposed to minimal language or who have not used language optimally as a tool of communication up to age 4/5. This is essentially what programmes intended to boost vocab and background knowledge are all about.

pdfs.semanticscholar.org/0050/138ea2aa886e7b53b9bf7d85b6f2f3dd82c6.pdf
"The Effects of Vocabulary Knowledge and Background Knowledge on Reading Comprehension of Taiwanese EFL Students"

[Norestformrz]

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/cdev.13072
"Amid growing controversy about the oft‐cited “30‐million‐word gap,” this investigation uses language data from five American communities across the socioeconomic spectrum to test, for the first time, Hart and Risley's (1995) ... Results do not support Hart and Risley's claim, reveal substantial variation in vocabulary environments within each socioeconomic stratum, and suggest that definitions of verbal environments that exclude multiple caregivers and bystander talk disproportionately underestimate the number of words to which low‐income children are exposed."

[mathanxiety]

www.danielwillingham.com/daniel-willingham-science-and-education-blog/the-debunking-of-hart-risley-and-how-we-use-science

The "Debunking" of Hart & Risley and How We Use Science
Daniel Willingham

The recent kerfuffle concerning Hart & Risley (1995) and the 30 million word gap offers an object lesson in science, the interpretation of science, and the relation of science and policy.

Let’s start with the new science. Douglas Sperry and colleagues sought to replicate Hart & Risley, who reported the 30 million word gap—that’s the projected difference in total number of words directed to a child by caregivers when comparing children of parents on public assistance and children of parents in professional positions. Sperry and his team claim not to find a statistically reliable difference among parents of different social classes.
​
​Coverage from NPR made it sound like Hart & Risley had been debunked, with the headline “Let’s stop talking about the 30 million word gap.”

But the Sperry report doesn’t really upend Hart & Risley.

First, Sperry et al. claim that the Hart & Risley finding has never been replicated. I am not sure what Sperry et al. mean by “replicate,” because the conceptual idea that socioeconomic status and volume of caregiver→child speech has been replicated. (The following list is not offered as complete—I stopped looking after I found five.)

Gilkerson et al (2017)
Hoff (2003)
Hoff-Ginsberg (1998)
Huttenlocher et al (2010)
Rowe (2008)

None of these is an exact replication---they have variations in methods, population, and analyses. The same is true of Sperry et al

......................
templeinfantlab.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/09/GolinkoffHoffRoweTamisLeMondaHirshPasek2018.pdf
"Language Matters: Denying the Existence of the 30 Million Word Gap has Serious Consequences"
Argues for the importance of retaining focus on the vital ingredient to language learning—quality speech directed to children rather than overheard speech, the focus of Sperry et al.’s argument.

There is little question that the language addressed to children matters for language development per se and for all its collateral benefits—for acquiring informationabout the world, developing self regulation skillsand executive function, and engaging with teachers and peers. Overhearing language about death and taxes—topics of interest to adults—can never be as effective for language learning as participating in contingent conversations about what matters to children.

[mathanxiety]

www.brookings.edu/blog/education-plus-development/2018/05/21/defending-the-30-million-word-gap-disadvantaged-children-dont-hear-enough-child-directed-words/
Same basic article in less technical language.

[mathanxiety]

fdslive.oup.com/www.oup.com/oxed/Oxford-Language-Report.PDF?region=international
UK vocabulary deficiency and its impact.

Apparently Oxford University Press has not heard of Sperry et al.

[gotmychocolateimgood]

I'm a primary teacher. I was never taught about schwa during my PGCE or on phonics training. I picked up my knowledge of it from the SENCO during my first year of teaching. Letters and Sounds doesn't mention it. Children are taught to read and spell a, the, etc as 'tricky words' which should be learnt by sight. I suppose the assumption is that eventually once they have finished phonics teaching, so year 2, they have read widely enough to have encountered the schwa through building familiarity of the words. For many children this is enough. But others who don't have a natural feel for spelling and take phonics too literally, because of how they have been taught in all fairness, struggle. For children with no books in their homes, illiterate parents and no access to libraries, this is a big issue.

[Norestformrz]

"Apparently Oxford University Press has not heard of Sperry et al." Perhaps it doesn't fit in with what they wanted to promote at that point.

[Norestformrz]

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/06/the-long-contentious-history-of-the-word-gap-study/562850/

[Norestformrz]

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/06/the-long-contentious-history-of-the-word-gap-study/562850/

[Norestformrz]

http://www.readingrockets.org/blogs/shanahan-literacy/there-really-30-million-word-gap

[Norestformrz]

.

[pasbeaucoupdegendarme]

This is all really interesting. It’s not something that my school’s phonics program teaches (Soundswrite).