Merkins

[Tom Zurinskas]

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>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       Paul Johnston <paul.johnston at WMICH.EDU>
>Subject:      Re: Merkins
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>
>Tom,
>Don't you DARE call Clackmannanshire England. It's about 100 miles
>within Scotland.  They may be both U. K. (and Britain), but there is
>a difference.
>
>Paul Johnston

Paul,

So sorry.  My hats off to the Scots.  I negelected to put "Scotland" in
there refering to the marvelous Clackmannanshire study.  England (UK?) is
adopting it as a national model.  This is a big, big change in teaching
reading.  A quick summary is below from another poster.

Here's an extract from the RRF home page (http: //www.rrf.org.uk/) which
sums  up synthetic phonics:
Synthetic Phonics –
No initial sight vocabulary where words are learnt as whole shapes; Emphasis
on letter sounds (not names - learn names in the first instance through, for
example, an alphabet song); systematic, fast-paced, comprehensive
introduction to letter/s-sound correspondence  knowledge (e. g. six
correspondences per week including vowels and  consonants); Putting the
correspondence knowledge to immediate use with all-through-the-word blending
for reading and segmenting single-sound units all-through-the-spoken-word
for spelling; No guessing words from picture, context or initial letter
cues.
This teaching approach is set within a literacy-rich environment and
includes a full range of further exciting, age-appropriate language and
literacy activities and creative opportunities.

A detailed account of synthetic phonics has recently been put in Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_phonics   Exerpts below:

What a typical Synthetic Phonics programme consists of is
learning letter sounds (as distinct from the letter names);
For example, /mm/ not muh, /ss/ not suh, /ff/ not fuh. The letter names can
be taught later but should not be taught in the early stages.
learning the 44 sounds and their corresponding letters/letter groups;
The English Alphabet Code 'Key' : 44 phonemes with their common 'sound
pattern' representations:
Vowels (19):
/a/ mat
/ae/ ape, baby, rain, tray, they, eight
/air/ square, bear
/ar/ jar, fast
/e/ peg, bread
/ee/ sweet, me, beach, key, pony
/i/ pig, wanted
/ie/ kite, wild, light, fly
/o/ log, want
/oe/ bone, cold, boat, snow
/oi/ coin, boy,
/oo/ book, would, put
/ow/ down, house
/or/ fork, ball, sauce, law,
/u/ plug, glove
/ur/ burn, teacher, work, first
/ue/ blue, moon, screw, tune
/uh/ (schwa) button, computer, hidden, doctor
/w/ wet, wheel,
Consonants (25):
/b/ boy, rabbit
/ks/gz/ box exist
/c/k/ cat /key, duck, school
/ch/ chip, watch
/d/ dog, ladder
/f/ fish, coffee, photo, tough
/g/ gate, egg, ghost
/h/ hat, whole
/j/ jet, giant, cage, bridge
/l/ lip, bell, sample
/m/ man, hammer, comb
/n/ nut, dinner, knee, gnat
/ng/ ring, sink
/p/ pan, happy
/kw/ queen
/r/ rat, cherry, write
/s/ sun, dress, house, city, mice
/sh/ ship, mission, station, chef
/t/ tap, letter, debt
/th/ thrush
/th/ that
/v/ vet, sleeve
/y/ yes
/z/ zip, fizz, sneeze, is, cheese
/zh/ treasure
learning to read words using sound blending;
reading stories featuring the words the students have learned to sound out;
demonstration excersises to show they comprehend the stories;

>From this I take it that kids are taught the phonetic scheme above and then
transition to tradspel.  If they use that symbology in writing, it is
similar to IBM's Writing to Read approach (minus symbols macrons over the
long vowels).  Thus,  it's the same as truespel except for one thing, it's
not "pronunciation guide quality", because it does not show stress as
truespel does.  So truespel is useful both as an initial teaching method and
as a pronunciation guide in dictionaries (see Beginner's Dictionary,
truespel book 3 - authorhouse.com).

The synthetic phonics design above is almost identical to the truespel
design (see truespel.com)

Tom Z

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