[senco-forum] a defintion of synthetic phonics

The question of defining synthetic phonics becomes muddied because it is not generally accepted that 'words' are an auditory phenomenon ie  they can only be heard, they cannot be seen.  What we see is 'text' representing the complex sound pattern that is a word. When we see the textual representation of a word, we can teach children to recreate the word by synthesizing it from its textual components.

Synthetic Phonics is therefore,  a strategy which involves teaching children to read (retrieve words)  by vocalising the phonemes associated with particular graphemes. 

Recreating the textual representation of a word (spelling) is inevitably analytical. These confusions may one day disappear when we finally realise that we need a professionally agreed definition of what reading is.

Eddie C.