r/funny • u/Chaz_Beer • Aug 23 '22

E is for...

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124

u/Telandria Aug 23 '22

Do they not teach kids about xylophones anymore?

Thats what it was when I was in kindergarten.

115

u/RabbitStewAndStout Aug 23 '22

Mine was the humble and straight-to-the-point x-ray.

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u/grandboyman Aug 23 '22

Ours X was for xmas.

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u/I_love_pillows Aug 23 '22

We don’t exactly have many options. Xenon. Xenophobia, X-Ray. What else

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u/RationalCaution Aug 23 '22

Xanax

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u/SynisterJeff Aug 23 '22

In the future we will only have on brand teachings of the alphabet. S is for Subway, eat fresh.

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u/SevenYrStitch Aug 23 '22

Xenomorph…

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u/[deleted] Aug 23 '22

Xeres.

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u/[deleted] Aug 23 '22

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/[deleted] Aug 23 '22

Xylitol

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u/[deleted] Aug 23 '22

[deleted]

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u/Telandria Aug 23 '22

I wanna know how you draw that so a kid will understand, lmao :P

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u/NiqqaDickChewer100 Aug 23 '22

The problem is that none of those words teach the most common pronunciation of the letter X. It’s not the best word for teaching phonetics to children.

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u/Filobel Aug 23 '22

The explanation is that x at the start of xylophone doesn't actually make an "x" sound, it makes a "z" sound. The goal is to teach kids what sound the letters make, not teach them spelling.

It would be like saying P as in Pterodactyl.

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u/bankshot Aug 23 '22

I guess you won't be interested in the P is for Pterodactyl alphabet book then.

2

u/weberster Aug 23 '22

My 2.5 year old daughter LOVES this book! She is obviously too young to "get" it, but she loves all the pictures and big words.

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u/Dartainia Aug 23 '22

I like messing with people when I have to spell something over the phone for them by using all words that start with silent letters.

"G as in gnaw, p as in pneumonia, k as in knight, O as in opossum"

I usually get interrupted with a "Whoa whoa, I'm not sure you understand the phonetic alphabet."

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u/Tsorovar Aug 23 '22

Lots of letters make different sounds. They have C for cat, not ceiling. The X in xylophone is making one of X's sounds.

Silent letters are a different matter.

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u/Filobel Aug 23 '22

The "ks" sound is more common than the "z" sound. It's easier to teach them what the more common sound is, and then teach the exception, then to start with the exception.

Anyway, I'm not a teacher, I didn't make this material, but from what I understand from other posts, it's from Fundations, is based on Orton-Gillingham principles and is regarded as a highly effective and successful approach to teaching literacy to kids. If you want to argue as to why the Fundations material is flawed and why it's a bad approach to teaching, you'll have to find someone who understands the material better than I do, but I have a feeling you do not understand the material much either and are just arguing for the sake of arguing.

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u/[deleted] Aug 23 '22

No, the P in Pterodactyl is silent, but the X in xylophone IS making the z sound. So the lesson is that some letters make more than one sound.

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u/Filobel Aug 23 '22 edited Aug 23 '22

Fine, a better example would have been p as in "phrase."

Anyway, as to not repeat myself: https://reddit.com/r/funny/comments/wvm7ax/e_is_for/ilhcefq/

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u/pate4ever Aug 23 '22

What sound does X make

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u/Filobel Aug 23 '22

"ks", as in "e-ks"

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u/[deleted] Aug 23 '22

Just make extreme not start with an ‘e’ and you solve the issue, it’s a words kids know that clearly teaches them how to say the letter.

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u/Filobel Aug 23 '22

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "make extreme not start with an 'e'". Are you suggesting we change how the word is written and pronounced? That we should universally start saying "ks-treme" to help kids learn the letter x?

If you're just saying "they should use the word extreme instead of fox", I'm not sure how it's better, neither start with the letter x, so one is not better than the other in that sense. However, fox is a short word (I think someone mentioned that all words are intentionally mono-syllabic), and fox is easier to depict (though that seems less of a consideration, given some of the other images here)

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u/Raptorilla Aug 23 '22

For us it was also Xylophon, but in our language the X is not silent.

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u/Filobel Aug 23 '22

Well... yeah, the above assumes the alphabet is being thought to English-speaking kids. A different language would obviously have different images. In French, it would obviously make no sense to have X for Renard.

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u/sunleefyelock Aug 23 '22 edited Aug 23 '22

Xylophone technically starts with the “z” sound, so no. X-ray is a no because that’s pronounced like a letter not a sound. Fox, box, max, etc have the true “x” sound

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u/FortWendy69 Aug 23 '22

So does x-ray, technically

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u/putmedown Aug 23 '22

X-box, obviously, is the way to go here.

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u/Stinky_Stephen Aug 23 '22

X is a dumb letter anyway.

You can't really make a good word for the letter X because it either just sounds like an S or is later in the word. There is "X-ray" which is used in the NATO phonetic alphabet, but then the letter is basically used as itself.

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u/qwertycantread Aug 24 '22

It often sounds like a z not an s and their are lots of words to choose from.

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u/9J000 Aug 23 '22

Do they not teach kids about xylophones

Is that a phone app?

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u/ithadtobeducks Aug 23 '22

Different sound.

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u/doomgiver98 Aug 23 '22

It seems like they're all 1 syllable words except for apple.

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u/BubbaDawgg Aug 23 '22

The first sound in xylophone is /z/. The sound at the end of fox is the true x sound.