using nonsense words to teach phonics = teaching ethnic slurs?

[lorisuewho]

Fox news article: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/05/02/why-is-school-teaching-kids-ethnic-slurs/

 

A kindergarten teacher was using nonsense words to teach phonics and a parent is angry. Turns out one of the made-up words is an ethnic slur. Plus she is mad about using "fake" words altogether.

 

I'm so out of touch, I wouldn't have been able to pick out the ethnic slur. I definitely felt ignorant.

[alisoncooks]

Wow.  Now that article is just silly.

 

FYI, I wasn't able to pick out the slurs on my own... so I must be ignorant, too.

(I've heard said:  if one's mind is in the "gutter" there is always dirt to be found...)

[MomintheMountains]

My oldest son goes to a public high school and he failed a fake word phonics reading test. He is an excellent reader, an A English student and will be taking AP English next year. They wanted to out him in some sort of a remedial class based on this. I was livid. Luckily the principal recognized the idiocy and put the kabosh on the idea. Actually, I think he failed because he thought it was a joke.

[Ellie]

Fox news article: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/05/02/why-is-school-teaching-kids-ethnic-slurs/

 

A kindergarten teacher was using nonsense words to teach phonics and a parent is angry. Turns out one of the made-up words is an ethnic slur. Plus she is mad about using "fake" words altogether.

 

I'm so out of touch, I wouldn't have been able to pick out the ethnic slur. I definitely felt ignorant.

 

I knew that "wop" was a slur. I thought "mut" referred to a mixed-breed dog. o_0

 

As a parent, I wouldn't be "mad" about using fake words to teach phonics; I would just be annoyed (said the Spalding geek, lol).

 

She just comes off sounding, well, stupid.

[boscopup]

I've never heard of those slurs.

 

A mixed breed dog is spelled "mutt". :)

[Butter]

I looked at the picture in the article looking for the slur.  I didn't know it.  I also didn't know the female body part term.  I'm not sure how I'd feel about nonsense words.  If they are being mixed with real words in a story, that would make no sense.  If it's about sounding out unknown words, I don't think it's a horrible idea.  Some reading level tests use nonsense words to see how well a kid decodes/uses the phonics rules they've been taught.

[forty-two]

My oldest son goes to a public high school and he failed a fake word phonics reading test. He is an excellent reader, an A English student and will be taking AP English next year. They wanted to out him in some sort of a remedial class based on this. I was livid. Luckily the principal recognized the idiocy and put the kabosh on the idea. Actually, I think he failed because he thought it was a joke.

Fwiw, I was an excellent reader, A student in AP classes, and I'd probably have failed a nonsense word test (my mom was the same). And while I think a remedial class is ridiculous in those circumstances, there's a *reason* I'd have failed the test - phonological awareness issues that *didn't* go away just because I managed to learn to read in spite of them - and I'd have really benefited from someone noticing them and helping me remediate them. Because those deficits made learning a foreign language extremely hard, and I spent years thinking that foreign languages just weren't my thing. Plus I felt stupid when I couldn't pronounce words I learned from my reading. I've learned so much from learning to teach phonics to my kids (two of whom have the same deficits as me, poor kids) - learning to blend at 30 is all sorts of not fun, but it's better than never learning at all.

 

I'm a big fan of nonsense words, because they are an easy test to catch all sorts of issues. Because if they are hard, there's generally a *reason*, and that reason doesn't go away just because someone managed to learn to read effectively in spite of it.

[lorisuewho]

On an unrelated note to the nonsense words, the beginning of the article itself irritated me. Why did the author number out (1, 2, 3, 4) four choices and then say the mom chose "D."

 

What in the world? Either use letters for the choices or say the mom chose number 4.

 

I know, petty.

[WahM]

I do not see why she would be mad at the teacher for using nonsense words. I think they are a great way to ensure the kids actually know the phonics rules and are not just memorizing the words by sight. Phonics Pathways uses nonsense words as an exercise to test the student to know if their learning the rules or not. I am also a great reader, did very well in school, but was never taught many of these rules and I wish I would have it would have made things better and make a lot more sense than trying to just memorize words.

[Ellie]

 

A mixed breed dog is spelled "mutt". :)

 

I know that is how it is properly spelled, which would only lead to my confusion, lol.

[kristinannie]

With all of the problems in education, this is not what I would freak out about.  At least this school teaches phonics!  I wasn't aware of either of those "bad" words.

[forty-two]

The teacher should call them sounds and ask students to practice/learn the sounds.  Calling them words is misleading.  I wonder if the mother in this example would have responded better to them had they been called sounds rather than words.

 

LiPS is careful about distinguishing between words and syllables - most "nonsense words" are legit syllables.

[lorisuewho]

And what was the other one? Wop?  When is wop a sound?

It is a sound when you sing "do-wop, do-wop, do-wop" Or is that not how that goes? lol

[forty-two]

But is mut? (I'm a poet and didn't know it.)

 

LOL

 

And what was the other one? Wop?  When is wop a sound? 

 

I'm sure I'm over thinking this.

 

"Mut" is - you even had it in your post - "mut-ter"

 

First thing that comes to wrt "wop" is "do-wop" :lol:.

 

And for my turn at over-thinking, or at least perfectionism: most syllables, nonsense or otherwise, aren't *a* sound, but are *several* sounds put together (since in phonics words are broken down into the smallest sounds possible - a phoneme is *one* sound, and syllables usually contain more than one phoneme).

[WahM]

Although...the term mut...what word with only one t with the combination m-u-t sounds like mutt?

 

I'm trying to think of one.

 

mutter (2 ts)

mutual (makes a different sound)

mutt (2 ts)

mutton (2 ts)

mutable (makes a different sound)

 

So...i don't quite get this.

Well, that the beauty of homeschooling we all get to use what makes sense to us :)

[forty-two]

 

I don't understand the point of teaching nonsense sounds.  Some of those strike me as not only nonsense words, but nonsense sounds. 

 

Well, wop is w-op, and op is a bonafide syllable.  The ability to add a sound to an existing syllable is an important one to have - if you can't do it easily, there's a problem.  I didn't read the article, so I don't know what the teacher was doing, but at least in LiPS, nonsense words/syllables are used as *practice* in tracking sounds, and encoding and decoding.  You aren't working each combo to mastery, but are using them as practice in getting the *skills* needed in reading/writing to mastery.  You wouldn't have spent more than 10-15 sec on wop (minus issues, in which case you'd use wop to target the underlying skills you are trying to develop).

 

And one reason for using straight up nonsense words/syllables is if you have a student who has sight memorized all the usual combinations yet doesn't have phonics down - gives you practice material that requires them to practice their phonics. (That is so very, very much dd7.)

[MistyMountain]

I have no problem if they do nonsense words because they are just looking to see if they have the ability to sound out unknown words. I don't think a program that uses them is bad.

 

I have heard of wop being used as an Italian slur. I grew up in an area where there was a big Italian population. I think it has fallen out of favor. Raising a stink about something I doubt the kid even noticed is pretty funny. If you don't teach the kid ethnic slurs and nip it in the bud if they pick up from somewhere else they won't use them.

[MistyMountain]

Ok...no but the mut makes the mutt sound because of the double t. When there is only one t it does not make the mutt sound. That is what I was trying to get at.

It still would say the same thing. Hut and but still have that sound even though butt has two ts.

[forty-two]

Ok...no but the mut makes the mutt sound because of the double t.  When there is only one t it does not make the mutt sound.  That is what I was trying to get at.

Color me confused, because I'd have said that mut and mutt sounded identical.  I didn't think the double t made any difference in how it was pronounced (or that it changes pronunciation in general, but I'm totally not up on my rules, so...)  I mean, in mutter it sound likes mutt (two t's).  How would you say it? 

 

(In general, no one's trying to be tricky with the pronunciation of nonsense words - they all are very straightforward letter-sound combos.  And when a *real* word/syllable commonly has a different pronunciation than the usual, it's pointed out.)

 

But why would you introduce a combination that does not exist in any word?

As I said, when your student knows by sight all the usual ones yet still needs practice with phonics.  And while they don't happen to exist, they *could* exist - they don't include any letter combos that aren't used in English.

[angela in ohio]

Each of my children went through a phase where they made up sounds. For my oldest, it was "robot language," for example. We put a stop to it, because anyone who doesn't have enough of a command of the English language to know whether they are accidentally saying something inappropriate doesn't need to be doing that. In my dd's case, she "made up" the f word.

 

I would apply the same rule to this teacher . ;) Wop is a fairly common pejorative for Italians, akin to chink or jap (perhaps those are on next week's list?)

 

I understand what they are trying to do here. They are swinging back far the other way from sight words, because just using a balanced, common sense approach to teaching reading doesn't create jobs for reading experts or a market for new teacher textbooks and curriculum. But if the teacher is not using a pre-made list of sounds (they are not words, imho) and is instead creating her own, she should be smart enough to look up her creations on the internet before giving them to young students to read and learn.

 

And I agree with Sparkly Unicorn; mut doesn't exist as a syllable, and it doesn't equal mutt. Therein lies the problem with this approach. Much as it takes a really great musician to play music comically bad, it takes someone with a thorough grasp of phonics to make up non-words that actually work.

[Reefgazer]

Some people spend their lives looking for a reason to be offended.

[LibraryLover]

Some people spend their lives looking for a reason to be offended.

 

As do some 'news' sources.  The sky is falling!  The sky is falling!

[Farrar]

I don't fully understand why phonics proponents would be upset by nonsense words.  Doesn't Elizabeth B's Phonics Page have a reading test that's all archaic words for exactly this reason?  Because it tests if you're really sounding everything out?  Not that a phonics method would have to use them.

 

I don't get, phonetically speaking, why mutt and mut would be different.  But then again, I grew up in the south so I can't hear the difference between pin and pen unless someone is pointing it out to me and treating me like a deaf idiot.  So maybe this is just something I don't hear.

[Ellie]

Ok...no but the mut makes the mutt sound because of the double t.  When there is only one t it does not make the mutt sound.  That is what I was trying to get at.

 

Yes, it "u" still says its first (or short) sound, so it still would say "mut." The number of final t's makes no difference (other than the fact that it isn't a word, AFAIK).

[wendyroo]

Although...the term mut...what word with only one t with the combination m-u-t sounds like mutt?

 

I'm trying to think of one. 

 

mutter (2 ts)

mutual (makes a different sound)

mutt (2 ts)

mutton (2 ts)

mutable (makes a different sound)

 

So...i don't quite get this. 

 

Get your mind in the gutter.

 

Smut.

[IsabelC]

Ah, another discussion that could only be found at TWTM forum  :)

 

Personally I think nonsense words can be a useful tool for some learners. For some kids this is the only way to actually make them sound things out. Not so  sure about doing them with an entire class, but it sounds as though the parent overreacted. She could have simply told the teacher 'you probably didn't realize, but this and this are actually not very nice words, so I'd appreciate if you could take them off the list'.

[momto2Cs]

On an unrelated note to the nonsense words, the beginning of the article itself irritated me. Why did the author number out (1, 2, 3, 4) four choices and then say the mom chose "D."

 

What in the world? Either use letters for the choices or say the mom chose number 4.

 

I know, petty.

 

That stood out to me too.

[ElizabethB]

I am a big fan of nonsense words for my remedial students, it saves a lot of time in the remediation process!

 

I did remove the ending -uck from my list because it made the f word, and also eventually removed -it because it made two bad words and the one that started with t made them laugh hysterically and embarassed the volunteers.

 

But, you cannot remove every single ending when the words are random as in my game. My game every once in a while makes a few words that are swear words or other types of not nice words. If I was writing out a list of nonsense words, I would double check the words. I personally have only heard wop used as a slur in older books. When a word comes up in class with my game, we just say that it is not a nice word and move on, the quicker you move on and the less explaining and repeating you do, the better the outcome.

 

I am also surprised that they used nonsense words!!

[ElizabethB]

That's some strange shi*.

I removed that possibility from my game!!

[ElizabethB]

But is mut? (I'm a poet and didn't know it.)

 

LOL

 

And what was the other one? Wop? When is wop a sound?

 

I'm sure I'm over thinking this.

Mut-ton, mut-ter, wop-per, swop-per, mud-der, divide between two consonants, syllables ending in a consonant are short.

 

One consonant, divide before, syllables ending in a vowel are long. Mu-tual. Mu-tant, as in teenage mutant ninja turtles, they are like nonsense turtles, I think.

 

You can do my complete multi syllabic phonics program in a few hours if you want to know more, it includes these syllable division rules, spelling rules, and an option to play my nonsense word game! :)

 

http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/WellTaughtPhonicsStudent.html

[Korrale]

Mut is an Ancient Egyptian goddess. At least that it a the first thing I thought about. Then I thought of mutt and I wondered why they couldn't say it was a mixe breed dog. Then I looked it up. Seriously. People make up words for that all the time. There is also a controversial f word for it that is acceptable in the US but not in other countries.

Mutton and muttonchops spang to mind too.

 

 

As for wop... Do-wop isn't obscure, at least I didn't think so. But more commonly wop wop wop is the sound of a helicopter in our house. We would use it as a complete acceptable onomatopoeia. Pom is insulting. But Pom is a name of a pomegranate drink, it is also part of pom-pom and short for a Pomeranian.

[kiwik]

I think the woman is being a bit precious about it. I also think the school needs to have some parent education nights.

[Mrs Twain]

How come mut couldn't be pronounced like put? As in, "Put it on the table."

 

Or are you saying that mut rhymes with putt, as in, "Putt the ball."

 

This is how my stupid brain works. I would certainly fail the nonsense phonics test.

[RootAnn]

Mut is an Ancient Egyptian goddess. 

 

As for wop... more commonly wop wop wop is the sound of a helicopter in our house. We would use it as a complete acceptable onomatopoeia. 

 

:iagree: Although I originally thought of the Leatherman tool for MUT.   :coolgleamA:  

 

We're a *wop-wop-wop* helicopter sounding house as well. But my mom is racist, so I recognized 'wop' as a slur against Italians right away. (She hung around them growing up, so her stories would include other people calling them names.) I knew she was racist growing up, but I never realized *how* racist until I was older.  :gnorsi: 

[Korrale]

I think growing up wog was a slur. But it also meant the flu or a cold. "I've got the wog." would generally not mean you have someone tied up under your house.

Maybe the big lessons for our kids is that context matters a lot.

Not that this helps with nonsense words. But it is a blending exercise. I used this kind of exercise with my son when he was first reading because he was a sight words reader and he could read thousands of words just from memory. Most of those words CVC words that were commonly used in early readers. It was good to test his phonetic reading skills with "words" that he had never seen before.

[OneStepAtATime]

Starting over with nonsense words was the only way my then mid-6th grader and then 3rd grader ever finally cracked the code to truly learn to read.  But I used a system that was specifically designed to build slowly, incrementally and logically starting with very basic nonsense words and we use it through one on one instruction with each child, not a group.  I love the system we are using and it has truly turned things around when the whole word recognition and rote memorization for 7 years in brick and mortar didn't work at all.  

 

However, there were a few times that the "nonsense" words actually were words to us, but they were real words because of familiarity with other words from other languages or science fiction shows that make up words all the time (such as Doctor Who :) ).  In one case, there was a "curse word" from a science fiction show.  Because I was teaching them individually we were able to deal with the issue very easily and I ended up substituting another nonsense word a few times.

 

This woman overreacted and handled things badly, but I can't truly tell from the article if the way they are using nonsense words is all that effective in a large classroom setting, or if the nonsense words they are using should possibly be reexamined for better choices, either.

[ElizabethB]

On a somewhat related note, I rarely say "t". Lot of times "t" becomes "d". Butter is "budder". Mutter is "mudder".

 

I can't be the only one who does this. LOL

They are consonant pairs, voiced and unvoiced, pronounced with the mouth and tongue in the same position but one is voiced and the other unvoiced. This is also why -Ed can be either d or t, or also -Ed. And, leaf to leaves, f and v are another pair. Certain regions of the country are more apt to do the d/t substitution, also young children, my son still does it at times. Also, s/z. My phonics lesson 6 explains more and lists all the pairs, LOL.

[Korrale]

On a somewhat related note, I rarely say "t". Lot of times "t" becomes "d". Butter is "budder". Mutter is "mudder".

 

I can't be the only one who does this. LOL

No! My 4 year old does this and I have been wondering if it an accent, developmental, or an articulation substitution issue. Ladder sounds like latter to me. But he also says boty instead of body.

Quite possibly it might be an accent thing.

Likewise a lot of people say imput rather than input. And there are many more words like that.

[Mergath]

I think the mom was looking for drama.  It's obvious the teacher wasn't trying to add an ethnic slur into the phonics worksheet.  If she was actually offended, I don't know why the mom couldn't have just jotted down a quick note that said, "This one is a slur for Italians, you may want to avoid it in the future, thanks."

 

And I think nonsense words are a great way for kids to practice sounding out words.

[eternalsummer]

On a somewhat related note, I rarely say "t".  Lot of times "t" becomes "d".  Butter is "budder".  Mutter is "mudder". 

 

I can't be the only one who does this.  LOL

 

Must be regional; I don't know anyone who *doesn't* speak like this, and it would sound strange to me if  they did.

[eternalsummer]

and google says (I thought I remembered this) that pronouncing the double t as a d in some words is pretty universal among Americans.

 

 

[Korrale]

and google says (I thought I remembered this) that pronouncing the double t as a d in some words is pretty universal among Americans.

Ahhh... I am Australian. That is why I think my son sounds weird. With his Ts and Ds. My American husband mumbles, as do many men I know. But he can say words clearly and he doesn't have much of an accent. But I think that is because of 13 years of speech therapy.

And I just asked him and he does say bu-der, ma-der and Li-der, instead of but-ter, mat-ter and Lit-ter like I do.

[eternalsummer]

yup, we say all of those as budder, madder, lidder

[OneStepAtATime]

My dad always said aiggs instead of eggs.  And my mom says srimp instead of shrimp.  Not certain about the srimp but the aiggs were West Texas.  My parents had heavy West Texas accents when I was younger but I was living mainly away from Texas as a kid.  My accent was nothing like theirs so we honestly sounded like we were from two different countries.