[SENco-forum] Re literacy

I have read Debbie Hepplewhite before and her description of synthetic
phonics equals phonic based reading and analytical phonics equals 'real
book' reading.

I thought this 30 year old argument had been put to bed with the million
dollar USA report that says both are needed to obtain the best results in
reading.

The only new piece of information here is that in synthetic phonics the
sounds are 're-taught' before they are mapped to words.

As an SpLD teacher I understand better than most how to teach the 44+ ph/gr
representations and this would underpin learning for many with visual
SPLD,however many have aural/APD and it would not help them, nor is it
needed by the 80% of children who read come what may as Eddie says.  By
switching for one from one form to another it still leaves a core unable to
read and this will not change until teachers can distinguish between the 2
failing groups and target them with what they do need to learn.  The best of
both styles need to be used despite what Ms Hepplewhite claims and hopefully
that only leaves a tiny minority needing my help.

Sharon Tringham

Are there any clear explanations available by reputable people NOT selling a
product?

Sharon.

SEN at tringham.net wrote: There still seems to be a lot of confusion about
what synthetic phonics
does. My understanding is that it is the introduction of one sound to one
letter without attaching that sound to a written word.
If you were to look at Debbie Hepplewhite's www.syntheticphonics.com you
will find an explanation of synthetic phonics and discover that your
understanding of it is not correct.

Synthetic phonics is not about the introduction of one sound to one letter
at all. It  works with the 40+ sounds which comprise English words. There is
some small debate about exactly how many sounds there are, but it is
generally agreed that there are between 42 -44 which need to be explicitly
taught. No, not 'taught', because, unless a child has profound hearing
difficulties, or poorly developed language skills, they already 'know' the
sounds as they have used them in learning to talk (a process which involves
a child learning to blend together sounds (phonemes) to produce the words of
their native language). Once they have learned to speak, they no longer
'need' the ability to discriminate and manipulate phonemes, so this skill is
'lost'.  Synthetic phonics teaching 'reintroduces' children to these
phonemes and teaches them how they are represented by a letter, or letters
in the construction of the written word.

As there are more phonemes than there are letters of the alphabet (and some
letters are 'redundant', in that they represent the same phonemes, e.g.
'c','k' & 'q')  childen are taught from the start at least one
digraph/trigraph (combination of 2 or 3 letters) to represent the phonemes
which cannot be represented by one letter. For example; there are 19 vowel
phonemes.  Obviously it is impossible for these to be represented by only 5
letters (6 if you include 'y).  So unless digraphs & trigraphs ('oi', 'oo',
'ar', 'ear' etc) are taught right from the start, a child will have a very
imperfect understanding of how the alphabetic code works and so will
struggle to read any word that does not contain a 'one to one' letter/sound
correspondence.  In a good synthetic phonics programme, once the children
have learned one way of representing each phoneme they are then
systematically taught the alternative representations (there are about 160
commonly used letter/sound
 correspondences).

A good programme starts children off reading words as soon as they have been
taught a few correspondences.  s,a,t,p,i,n are the most commonly used first
correspondences - when children have these to automaticity they are able to
read about 200 words (this is after the first week of teaching).  They are
taught to blend the individual phonemes together in response to their
written representation to 'read' a word (synthsise just means to 'make' or
'build' - it has become divorced  from its real meaning by its unfortunate
association with 'synthesised materials such as nylon, and so has the
connotation of being 'artificial', but that it not its true meaning).  At
the same time, children are taught to write a letter/letters (grapheme) in
response to a phoneme, and to write whole words by breaking a spoken word
into its phonemes and writing the graphemes in the order in which the
phonemes come in the word.

It is very simple and very empowering for children.  A good programme will
cover 1 representation of all of the 40+ phonemes in the first term of YR
and have most of the children reading and writing at levels commensurate
with their ability.  The speed of the teaching/learning enables teachers to
identify children with problems very early, to target extra support quickly
and to get apppropriate help/investigations if necessary.

I don't know why people are so afraid of this!

I find that the majority of the children I work with have had very
incomplete phonics teaching; they are mostly unaware of the representation
of the phonemes beyond the 'alphabet' phonemes (and 'th', 'ch' & 'sh, which
are taught in 'incomplete' phonics).  They are also unaware of many of the
alternative ways of representing phonemes. Once these gaps in their
knowledge are filled they progress extremely well.

Not only are children taught 'incomplete' phonics, but they are also taught
'whole word recognition' by means of flash cards etc.  This confuses them
badly, as they do not know which strategy they are meant to use for working
out  new words (in fact, most of them don't even know that they can work out
what a word 'says' by themselves, they just stare at it blankly and wait to
be told it).  Are they supposed to look at them and somehow 'know' what the
word says, or are they meant to decode and blend all through the word? How
does a child know what is appropriate when they have been taught two
conflicting strategies?  The old Searchlights strategy also taught them that
it was appropriate to guess words from initial letters, picture clues and
context, and put meaning above accuracy.  Under those circumstances is it
any wonder that many children found reading very difficult and failed to
learn?

While I would agree with you that the production of 'pure' sounds is
important, I am frequently surprised by struggling readers who will sound
out a word putting 'uh' on the end of each phoneme, yet still manage to
blend and say the complete word correctly!

I very much hope that this helps to give you a clearer understanding of
'synthetic' phonics.

Maggie

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