[senco-forum] a defintion of synthetic phonics

Ok, so far so good; but surely even taking a synthetic phonics approach if I want to spell a work I will first analyse the word in order to identify its constituent phonemes which I will then try and map - am I therefore allowed to analyse things whilst taking a synthetic phonic approach, or am I being too pedantic (feel like I need a gin and tonic!!!).
  Alice

Mmilesep at aol.com wrote:

In a message dated 09/10/2007 20:30:10 GMT Daylight Time, 
alice.chenneour at btinternet.com writes:

I would really like to pick your brains on how you would describe synthetic 
phonics in relation to analytic phonics - it's just that when I put it to 
staff that the focus of literacy teaching had moved from an approach which 
favoured analytic phonic to one favouring synthetic phonics, they jumped on this 
saying that all phonics teaching was largely of the synthetic variety. I did 
point out teaching literacy along the lines of onset and rime was an example 
of the analytical approach but I flapped. What do you understand by these 
terms!?

You either synthesis or analyse. Synthesise - build up; analyse break down.

So, the word "Cat" can be synthesised or built up from the phonemes /c/ /a/ 
/t/ or can be analysed or broken down from the whole word to its separate 
sounds. Also same analysis applies to the onset (initial sound) and rime (rest 
of the word).

Sounds first or words first? Discuss. Where are you Julie?

Martin