Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Why does 'why' not start with a 'y'?

Luke has been learning phonics at pre-school. He already knew the alphabet but now each day he goes (Mondays and Wednesdays) a letter is highlighted. Monday was 'I' and I imagine Wednesday will be 'J'.

When he comes home he likes sounding off words he knows that start with the letter of the day and as a game we quizz him on another letter and words he knows. The problem arrives when our English language takes a detour from normal rules. So like yesterday I have to tell him that the word 'eye' doesn't start with 'I'. It makes no sense to him and he is just follwoing what he has been taught. It's sad to correct him on things like why 'kite starts with a 'k' but 'cat' doesn't.

Yes 'pea' starts with a 'p', 'bee' and 'be' start with a 'b' and 'tea' starts with a 't' but...
Why do 'see' and 'sea' not start with a 'c'?
Why does 'eye' not start with an 'i'?
Why do 'inn' and 'in' not start with an 'n'?
Why does 'are' not start with an 'r'?
Why does 'you' not start with a 'u'?
Why does 'double u' not start with a 'w'?
and the coupe-de-grace
Why does 'why' does not start with a 'y'?

The English language makes no sense sometimes to a 4 yr old but also to a 42 yr old.

2 comments:

Kelly Cook said...

I've heard it is the hardest language to learn, because we don't really have rules that we stick by- oh well, with emails and bad spellers like me I am sure it will only be a matter of time before we don't have spelling or phonix at all

;)

Andy McCullough said...

or better yet, spell-check catches all of our errors so we the gernartion we are raising will never have to dred spelling bee contests.