[BenKenobi]

Now, you laugh, but all the sounds are there.

Bird vs Word vs Whirred.

Why is it Bird and not Berd/Werd/Werd?

All one sound, yet spelled three different ways. If you were to look at word for the first time, how would it be pronounced?

If I said “the bird took the word and whirred?” does that sentence make any sense to you?

[philman_36]

Why is it Bird and not Berd/Werd/Werd?
Ummm...because you have a higher intellect than the child you're teaching and you will teach them those things as they grow older and become more familiar with words.
You aren't expecting a child to know this on their own, are you?

Even in teaching with phonics there is a process of progress over time, isn't there?