Children need synthetic phonics to read well

When children are taught to read via a synthetic phonics system, they read better than their peers who are generally taught either using an analytic phonics or whole language approach. What's more, boys really excel with their reading as they get older, while as the normal reading methods in use in countries such as NZ favour girls. So overall, all children read better, but boys better still with the synthetic phonics approach.

Phonics, a teaching method replaced decades ago by whole language teaching, reversed the gender divide in a seven-year British study to be published in a book in August.

The study found boys outperformed girls in reading and spelling when they were systematically taught synthetic phonics, an accelerated phonics programme. All students taught the programme read well above the average reading age - but at 11, boys were about 9.5 months ahead of girls.

I don't know about everyone else, but this has got me wondering. Given that boys do really well in reading when taught using synthetic phonics, will that fact alone count against it being pushed in New Zealand? I hope I'm not being overly paranoid.

So, what is synthetic phonics? From the Scottish report:

Synthetic phonics is used in Germany and Austria and is generally taught before children are introduced to books or reading. It involves teaching small groups of letters very rapidly, and children are shown how letter sounds can be co-articulated to pronounce unfamiliar words. In a UK version of synthetic phonics, i.e. Hickey's Multi-Sensory Language Course (Augur and Briggs,1992), the first block of letter sounds is 's', 'a', 't', 'i', 'p', 'n', which make up more three-letter words than any other six letters. Children are shown many of the words that these letters generate (e.g. 'sat', 'tin', 'pin').

In our version of synthetic phonics children use magnetic letters to build up words and to help them understand how letter sounds can be blended together to pronounce the words. In order to read a word, the appropriate magnetic letters are set out; the children then blend the letter sounds together, smoothly co-articulating them, whilst pushing the letters together. The approach is also used for learning to spell (and to reinforce blending for reading). The children listen to a spoken word, select the letters for the sounds, and then push the letters together, sounding and blending them to pronounce the word. Consonant blends are not explicitly taught at all as they can be read by blending, although digraphs (i.e. a phoneme represented by two letters e.g. 'sh', 'th', 'ai', 'oa') are taught.

A typical lesson using our scheme would be as follows. Soon after starting school, the children are taught the sounds for the letters 't', 'a', and 'p'. Then a child at the front of the class is asked to select these letters from the teacher's large magnetic board, and to place them in a row below the other letters of the alphabet. The class then give the sounds of the letters, 't', 'a', 'p' and then blend the sounds together to pronounce the word 'tap', whilst the letters are pushed together. Spelling is taught in the same session, the teacher either saying or showing a picture of a word using the letters that have been taught. The children pick out the letters for the sounds that they hear in the word, and place them together on their own magnetic boards. They will then sound and blend, pushing the letters together.

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Children need synthetic phonics to read well

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