The Problem with Phonics

Until today I never really considered the possible downside of teaching a child to interpret the English launguage by using phonics. Now I know!

David sat in Church with me today because he loves to watch the band play. The electric guitar is his new favorite. Anyway, toward the end of the sermon he was getting a bit antsy as most 5 year olds do. He picked up a pen and started writing on my sermon notes. He asked me how to spell "fart". Like any good mother I refused to tell him. So, being the determined little bugger that he is he did it on his own. He went fffffffffffffffffffffff and then wrote F. He proceded to write the whole word and then proudly showed it to me. A couple of minutes later he is tugging on me and says "mom, how do you spell stink." Again I would not tell him as we are in the midst of a sermon. He sounded it all out and came up with S-D-I-N-K. I was quite proud of him but really, couldn't he have picked some more appropriate words...at least for church?

I wanted to take a picture of the paper but I accidentally left it at church when I showed a friend his handy work.