Jolly Phonics pronunciation in Irish Schools

Jolly Phonics is a British produced synthetic phonics scheme.  Therefore, sometimes the pronunciation of certain sounds is different to how they are pronounced in Ireland, e.g. “u”, “aw” and even “a”.  Kat2 checked it out…
You have to adapt JP to suit the Irish accent as it is written to reflect ‘British received pronunciation’ (I think that’s the correct term.)
For example they pronounce ‘autumn’ as /or/t/u/m and ‘saw’ as /s/or/.
In the beginning the JP action and song for ‘or’ struck me as being strange- they have a child saying /or/ for the the doctor whereas over here we would naturally say /aw/ until I realised that it is simply down to pronunciation.
You just need to be aware of this and adapt accordingly.

0 thoughts on “Jolly Phonics pronunciation in Irish Schools”

  1. Yep they tend to do more lip rounding on the short “o” sound.  The IPA symbol /ɒ/ is used to describe it internationally. Most of the people around here in Fingal keep their lips a bit less round.

  2. I also found it a littl odd to be teaching the “ar” sound -when with an Irish accent a and r blend to give “ar” as we pronounce it.

    • Thanks for the comment. I thought with the popularity of Jolly Phonics over here that something might have been produced but alas we will have to keep rhyming arm with Tom!

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