In her article, Penn (2026) explores how instruction (in her example a phonic-based sorting activity) can unintentionally be racist. She discusses an activity in which her daughter, Jiselle, (with an African American accent) and her daughter’s friend, Samira, (with a Somali-infused accent) were penalised because of their pronunciation of particular words.
The activity centred around the concept that ‘ed’ indicates past tense, but can be pronounced as /əd/, /d/ or /t/. The students were required to sort a list of words containing the ‘ed’ suffix based on how the ‘ed’ was pronounced. However, there were a number of words that they sorted ‘incorrectly’ according to standard American English because they pronounced the words differently.
The following table shows Jiselle’s and Samira’s pronunciations. Note, that the girls’ pronunciation of the words was consistent with how these words are pronounced by others with an African American or Somali accent.
| Word | Jiselle | Samira | “Correct” answer |
| cleaned | /cleant/ | /cleand/ | d |
| Skipped | /skipt/ | /skipəd/ | t |
| spelled | /spelt/ | /spelləd/ | d |
Penn argued that this activity, like many other educational activities, was not a harmless, innocuous activity but rather, in this particular example, was measuring how closely a student’s speech resembled standard American English. By marking these girls’ answers as incorrect, the teacher was actually sending a message that standard American English was superior.
Penn provides a range of ideas for celebrating language diversity which you might be interested in exploring. However, it made me think about how we can vary activities like this ‘ed’ sorting activity so that children who speak a non-standard variation of English, whether it be due to ethnicity or socio-economic background, are not penalised or devalued because of their pronunciation of particular words.
One simple idea for achieving the desired result of understanding that ‘ed’ represents past tense and can be pronounced /əd/, /d/ or /t/ is to simply flip the activity. So instead of sorting a group of words based on how the word is pronounced, you could provide students with a list of words for them to determine whether or not the word has been spelled correctly.
| The morpheme ‘ed’ indicates past tense and can be read as /əd/, /d/ or /t/. Tick the words that have been spelled correctly. If the word has been spelled incorrectly, rewrite it using the correct spelling | ||
| Words | Tick if correct | Correct spelling if wrong |
| yelled | ||
| hopet | ||
| farmd | ||
| barked | ||
| stand | ||
| next | ||
It is a simple, but powerful change. An alternative idea would be to ask your students who speak a non-standard version of English how they pronounce the word before marking it as incorrect.
There is also a similar issue with regards to grammar and the coding of words with regards to spelling. As educators, we need to be keeping mind that how we use language will vary depending on our audience. When speaking with and writing to our friends or people in our own social circle, it is arguably acceptable to use the language that is the norm in that environment. However, it is important that while accepting the students’ home language usage, we should also teach them the spelling, pronunciations and grammar conventions expected in an academic or formal setting. As is true of all writing, it is important to always keep our audience in mind and communicate accordingly.
Reference
Penn, J. I. 2026. “ Little Letters, Heavy Lessons: A Black Mother’s Critique of a “Simple” Phonics Lesson and the Myths of Neutral Instruction.” The Reading Teacher 80, no. 2: e70085. https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.70085.