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Primary education

Join our Primary Education forum to discuss starting school and helping your child get the most out of it.

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Original poster

Year 1 and already am confused by the homework!!

22 replies

twofishes · 13/10/2007 20:59

DS had homework last weekend to do which we got back today marked...and I am confused a bit

They had to write words (by themselves) that had the same 'middle sounds' as a word written down by the teacher..
So we had fork and DS wrote pork and talk so he got a tick for pork but loads of ??? for talk now DS did this by himself and I checked it and thought that although it was different letters talk has the same 'middle sound' and that the homework was perhaps highlighting that different letters can make the same sound, there were six words to do and they were supposed to write 2 words to go with each.
Another one was deal and DS wrote seal and peel and got a tick for peel and seal was corrected to seel and left blank...(prob cos its not a word is it?)DP says I should go in and ask but don't want to look completely stupid instead of just vaguely stupid whats your opinion???

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BBBee · 13/10/2007 21:03

go amd ask - it is making no sense at all - you won;t look stupid you will look like you are interacting with the homework.

cazzybabs · 13/10/2007 21:03

Humm - I would have given you them...they are
correct. she clearly meant same phoneme making up the middle sound. i would go in - but then I teach in a prep school and get parents complainning about everything.

TheodoresMummy · 13/10/2007 21:04

1st example - talk does not have the same middle sound as fork (but would not expect a yr 1 to be able to tell the difference )

2nd example - seal is a word though, so why did she change it, I wonder ?

BrassicMonkey · 13/10/2007 21:05

If the teacher wanted the same middle letters as well as sounds then how come peel worked for deal IYSWIM?

I think I would ask the teacher on Monday. Could it be that she was marking absentmindedly? Or perhaps we are both thick 2fishes???

roisin · 13/10/2007 21:05

If your ds did "talk" himself correctly, then to me he obviously has sound phonics and excellent spelling; and as a teacher or parent I wouldn't be stressing.

But to explain, when they teach phonics the vowels are complicated. And what they do is teach a sound (phoneme) - like the "ee" in sheep, and then teach the different ways of spelling it.

So what the teacher probably wanted them to write was the same phoneme and the same spelling
fork, pork, cork, dork!

I don't understand the deal one though - that's confused me.

pinkbubble · 13/10/2007 21:05

I can see why teacher marked talk. Pork has an orr sound in the middle and talk has an ull sound in the middle. Maybe for the deal word she wanted meal, feel, heel etc!!!!! although I can't see anything wrong with seal! May be the teacher was a bit quick to tick!!

choosyfloosy · 13/10/2007 21:05

Completely mystifying. From what your ds did I would say he is doing brilliantly, I will be amazed if ds can do anything like that in a year's time!

I would certainly have done the same thing as your ds, given those instructions, so I think worth checking this out with the teacher.

at 'seel', WTF?

choosyfloosy · 13/10/2007 21:07

xposted with loads of other people. My 'talk' sounds exactly the same as my 'pork', phonemes vary with accents shurely?

popsycal · 13/10/2007 21:07

Agree with roisin

Shannaratiger · 13/10/2007 21:08

i agree with your DP. my dd starts school next sep. so have bought the phonics dvd from elc as have no idea about letter phonics sounds

BrassicMonkey · 13/10/2007 21:09

Yes, also think your DS is doing very well. My DS is also in Year 1 and his homework is nothing like this.

allhallows · 13/10/2007 21:09

What d'you do if one parent is English & the other's Nth American, for ex?

Original poster

twofishes · 13/10/2007 21:16

oh well am glad it is not just me... I was quite pleased that DS had done it by himself..and yes Choosyfloosy fork and talk sound the same to me but that is probably my accent...
Shannaratiger maybe I should get that DVD too
oh well wish me luck on monday!!

OP posts:

jennifersofia · 15/10/2007 23:01

Well, I am American and I teach phonics, and have had conversations with colleagues about phonics! It is tricky. Basically I teach to English pronunciation, and that is what I teach my own dc's, as that is what they learn in school. (Though I do call 'z' 'zeee' in the privacy of my own home!).
People who pronounce 'pork' and 'talk' the same, do you really say 'tork' or 'palk'?
(no slur on accents, just curious)

SSSandy2 · 16/10/2007 10:12

pork and tork. No difference in the pronunciation for me

SSSandy2 · 16/10/2007 10:15

twofishes, I wouldn't be happy with the homework corrected that way. I don't see how it's helpful the way she went about it.

elliott · 16/10/2007 11:14

Mystified here - how can talk be pronounced so that it doesn't rhyme with pork? What accent would that be??

BrassicMonkey · 16/10/2007 12:59

Wouldn't you have to be very precise with pronunciation for pork and talk to not rhyme? They certainly do in my accent (south London).

MrsBadger · 16/10/2007 13:05

(you hear the difference more clearly when the consonants are the same - there's a definite difference between the stalk of a flower and the stork flying past...)

elliott · 16/10/2007 13:47

no, I would say stalk and stork just the same too - am genuinely interested in how they would be different? I am from midlands now living in the north...
I guess a west country accent might pronounce the r in stork?

BrassicMonkey · 16/10/2007 14:48

If I was doing my best to speak correctly, then yes Stork would sound slightly different to Stalk, but not that different. In relaxed 'speak' they'd both still sound the same - but perhaps I'm just lazy.

singersgirl · 16/10/2007 14:53

In my accent (RP sort of Londonish) 'stalk' and 'stork' are pronounced exactly the same. I guess they are pronounced differently eg in Scotland where there is a rhotic (or rolled) 'r' - 'storrk'. But there is no 'r' sound in the SE England version.

I'm really intrigued by the poster who said that 'talk' had an 'ul' sound in it. Would that be t-u-l-k with the 'l' pronounced?

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