Pedants this way please - A whinge about the way Jolly Phonics.

[foxytocin]

Righty. Maybe IABU. I went to dd's parents' meeting at reception where the reading programme, Jolly Phonics and some other one were discussed.

They showed the JP Dvd. on the DVD they said

the letter 't', 'r' 'f' were sounded out as 'teh' 'reh' 'feh'

so fret would be spelt 'feh' 'reh' 'e' 'teh'

It has always annoyed me when I hear children sounding out words as those sounds are 'pure' sounds. they do not have a 'schwa' in them yet even the instructional DVD teaches them that way.

kids still learn to read write and spell I know but it is jolly annoying to listen to them done wrong.

I am indeed.
I write my diary in it sometimes for fun.

I think you have every right and reason to question this if they are messing it up.

Write it in form of a letter if you find it will be hard to verbalise it for fear of sounding snotty. If it's wrong, then JP need to know too!

now i'll need to see the dvd again and make 100% sure and pinpoint the time the first glaring example (to me) happened.

I thought all Welsh people were good at singing!?

Tell that to my dh.

I hadn't used IPA since university until last term and the nursery received a programme from SALT for a non verbal child which had an IPA section. I discovered how rusty I have become

Foxy - could you ask to borrow one of the parent CDs overnight. Then you could go back and say:

"I'm a bit confused because I borrowed another JP DVD from a friend/listened to the JP sounds online, and in those, the sounds are pronounced differently (outline what the differences are). Please can you tell me which is right. I would hate other people to be confused as well".

Would that be more tactful as an opening conversation?

I work FT Littlefish and a CM drops and picks up dd1. So I don't get much opportunity to speak to the teacher unless I make the time for it. I am a teacher too so it isn't easy to arrange a casual convo with him iyswim. I can see what you are getting at though. I may have to go down the letter route and apologize for doing so. Will be borrowing a DVD though and viewing it even if to prove myself wrong.

Can I hijack this very interesting thread and ask you lovelies for some advice? Am in Italy with bilingual dd aged 6 next month and about to start Italian elementary school where reading seems to follow the "if you write "cat" 300 times on a sheet of paper, next time you see the combination of c-a-t you know how to read it

Anyway, obviously, any English reading is going to be done by yours truly. My degree is modern languages and linguistics and I'm now an EFL teacher so phonetics has always been my bread and spread....am intending to buy JP reading schemes (as any more of Biff and Bosh and whatever else they're called in ORT and I might eat my own face) Would I need to start dd with level 1 of JP? Or could I go straight to Level 2? (she knows her letters, can read more or less the ORT level 1 stuff, gets bored when it's a word she can't read and loses her rag with it etc etc) Recognises words we see out and about "asda, marks and spencer etc".

Any recommendations happily received!

foxy you can order a free copy from the Jolly Learning website delivery is usually very quick.

Bucharest I wouldn't buy JP reading books (IMO they are dire) OUP have brought out Songbirds - written by Julia Donaldson of Gruffalo fame so even the very early ones have a nice rhyming story line - starts off with Top Cat and Cat Nap

TeamEdward I am horrified that you are teaching y1 with so little phonics training. Poor you. At our school everyone received the training, every teacher from n-y6, every TA/LSA. The parents were all offered workshops and all our parent reading volunteers have to receive phonics training before getting into the classroom.

How much phonics training did your staff have angrypixie? Most schools I know had one day

Can anyone suggest a good slow-paced DVD for a new reader? DS just learnt the alphabet in 2 days by accident and it wasn't the phonetic alphabet. He loses interest in programmes that are too cluttered or fast-pace though and, being autistic social context is a little confusing. Any ideas?

Units of sound is uncluttered. How old is your ds?

We've had loads MRZ, 2 half days on the last INSET as a refresher to previous training and we have at least 2 more staff meetings coming up looking at assessing phonic knowledge. As I said we train our parent helpers thoroughly too.

Yes the one day I mentioned was a refresher for previous training but it is not enough to provide the detailed knowledge teachers require to teach phonics well. Universities and schools need to take training more seriously.

I agree, our NQTs are coming in with a shocking lack of knowledge. We do a lot of extra twilight training for them.

Corp He'll be 3 in November, but is an express learner of academic things but with a social and emotional age of not even 9 months. He knows all his colours and shapres including obscure ones like pentagon and violet. FGS I don't even know what violet or a pentagon look like! I'm worried about him learning things 'wrong' and want to encourage him to engage with stuff rather than just rote learning iyswim.

Moonlight, have a look at the Jolly Phonics
interactive games on CD-ROM: 20 games / 3 levels. jollylearning.co.uk/2009%20UK%20Catalogue.pdf

I use the Jolly Phonics games on the IWB with my reception class and they love them.