hiragana & katakana

ノート
You usually use Katakana for words from foreign countries, but because pupils learn Katakana after Hiragana, teachers at primary schools use Hiragana for the Katakana words at first, for a while. That confuses some foreign parents. One of my students sometimes shows me letters from her daughter's school. Her daughter has just entered primary school and has been learning Hiragana. In the letters, you can see what kind of things children need to bring to school. There the mother found the word written as "のおと", which is normally written with Katakana, "ノート"(notebook). She looked into dictionary but couldn't find "のおと". The teacher thought it was easier for childeren, but it turned out more difficult for a foreign parent.