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Synthetic Phonics
After much debate, and tooing and frooing, the education community agrees - synthetic phonics is the method England, Wales and Northern Ireland will use to teach children to read and spell.
Synthetic phonics is an awkward technical name that has nothing to do with being artificial! It is the synthesizing or blending of phonemes (sounds) to make a word and enable children to read. The real beauty of synthetic phonics is that it teaches reading and spelling hand-in-hand - so if a child can read a word, they can also spell it!
Reading and Synthetic Phonics:
The process of reading with synthetic phonics involves decoding or 'breaking' words into separate phonemes which can then be blended together to read a written word.
"I start with the 'c' what sound can that letter represent? I sound out each letter, and then blend 'c' with 'a' to make 'ca', and then blend 'ca' to 't' to make cat!"
Synthetic phonics also teaches a group of phonemes, somewhere between four and eight, and will always include both consonants and vowels. With many phonemes it means children can read and spell a whole bank of words from the very first few weeks of learning to read.
Spelling and Synthetic Phonics:
The process of spelling with synthetic phonics requires children to identify the phonemes in a word and then to use their knowledge of the letters associated with those phonemes to write or 'make' the word.
"I want to spell frog, what phonemes can I hear, and what graphemes are those phonemes represented by?"
At a Glance Synthetic Phonics Teaches Children:
Learn more:
Synthetic phonics is an awkward technical name that has nothing to do with being artificial! It is the synthesizing or blending of phonemes (sounds) to make a word and enable children to read. The real beauty of synthetic phonics is that it teaches reading and spelling hand-in-hand - so if a child can read a word, they can also spell it!
Reading and Synthetic Phonics:
The process of reading with synthetic phonics involves decoding or 'breaking' words into separate phonemes which can then be blended together to read a written word.
"I start with the 'c' what sound can that letter represent? I sound out each letter, and then blend 'c' with 'a' to make 'ca', and then blend 'ca' to 't' to make cat!"
Synthetic phonics also teaches a group of phonemes, somewhere between four and eight, and will always include both consonants and vowels. With many phonemes it means children can read and spell a whole bank of words from the very first few weeks of learning to read.
Spelling and Synthetic Phonics:
The process of spelling with synthetic phonics requires children to identify the phonemes in a word and then to use their knowledge of the letters associated with those phonemes to write or 'make' the word.
"I want to spell frog, what phonemes can I hear, and what graphemes are those phonemes represented by?"
At a Glance Synthetic Phonics Teaches Children:
- That spoken words are composed of phonemes (sounds)
- The 44 phonemes of the English language (some programmes suggest 42 phonemes, but as long as its between 42 and 44 you are safe!)
- All the different ways each phoneme can be represented, e.g. the phoneme /a/ as in 'apron' can be spelled ('ay' like in 'pay, 'ai' like in 'paid', 'a' like in 'apron', 'eigh' like in 'eight' and so on...)
- To blend phonemes in a word to read
- To listen for phonemes in words to spell
- Irregular, high frequency words which are so essential to help children progress the quality of their writing and move onto reading full sentences
- the phoneme name first, and then the letter name
Learn more:
- Get to grips with synthetic phonics terminology
- Read the Introduction to Synthetic Phonics Whitepaper to fully understand the process
- Have a look at Jack's writing portfolio - see how synthetic phonics quickly progresses children's writing confidence
- Watch: What is Synthetic Phonics?
