Synthetic phonics

Synthetic phonics (UK) or blended phonics (US), also known as inductive phonics, is a method of teaching reading which first teaches the letter sounds and then builds up to blending these sounds together to achieve full pronunciation of whole words. This article relates to the English language only.

Synthetic phonics teaches the phonemes (sounds) associated with the graphemes (letters) at the rate of about six sounds per week. The sounds are taught in isolation then blended together (i.e. synthesised), all-through-the-word. For example, children might be taught a short vowel sound (e.g. /a/) in addition to some consonant sounds (e.g. /s/, /t/, /p/). Then the children are taught words with these sounds (e.g. sat, pat, tap, at). They are taught to pronounce each phoneme in a word, then to blend the phonemes together to form the word (e.g. /s/ - /a/ - /t/; "sat"). Sounds are taught in all positions of the words, but the emphasis is on all-through-the-word segmenting and blending from week one. It does not teach whole words as shapes (initial sight vocabulary) prior to learning the alphabetic code.

Synthetic phonics develops phonemic awareness along with the corresponding letter shapes. It involves the children rehearsing the writing of letter shapes alongside learning the letter/s-sound correspondences preferably with the tripod pencil grip. Dictation is a frequent teaching technique from letter level to word spelling, including nonsense words (e.g. choy and feep) and eventually extending to text level. It does not teach letter names until the children know their letter/s-sound correspondences thoroughly and how to blend for reading and segment for spelling. Often when letter names are introduced it is through singing an alphabet song.

Synthetic phonics teaches phonics at the level of the individual phoneme from the outset; not syllables and not onset and rime. Synthetic phonics does not teach anything about reading as a meaning-focused process, raising concerns that it addresses part of the reading process only. It highlights decoding and pronunciation of words only. Teachers are to put accuracy before speed. Fluency (i.e. speed, accuracy,expression, and comprehension) will come with time, proponents argue but the research into this is equivocal.

...
Wikipedia