Learning to read is essentially learning a code. The letters we use are simply symbols or written code for the speech sounds of English. Learning about the relationship between the letters of the alphabet and the speech sounds they represent allows us to “crack the code” and learn to both read (decode) and spell (encode).
Synthetic Phonics is a way of teaching children to read. It has been identified both here and overseas as the most successful approach to the teaching of reading and spelling. The ‘synthetic’ component reflects the practice of ‘synthesising’, or blending together. The ‘phonic’ part reflects the process of linking individual speech sounds (phonemes) to written symbols (graphemes). Essentially, when a child learns to read using Synthetic Phonics they learn to link letters to speech sounds and then blend these sounds together to read words. They also learn to separate (segment) words into their constituent sounds and link these sounds to letters in order to spell them.
The term ‘Synthetic Phonics’ began to be widely used after the publication of a study carried out in Clackmannanshire, in Scotland. Researchers from St Andrew’s University found that one method of learning to read produced much better results than the other methods they looked at. This method was called Synthetic Phonics. This success has since been replicated in numerous studies world-wide.
When we say the alphabet we tend to use letter names – Ay, Bee, Cee etc. When we read or spell a word (decode or encode) it is important to know the speech sound that the letters are representing, for example the speech sounds /k/, /a/, /t/ blend together to make the word “cat” – not /Cee/, /Ay/, /Tee/.
In a number of cases, two letters (or sometimes three) are put together to represent a specific sound, such as ‘s’ and a ‘h’ representing the /sh/ sound (as in ship) or ‘t’, ‘c’ and ‘h’ representing the /ch/ sound (as in match). When two letters are used to represent a specific sound it is called a ‘digraph’. Vowel sounds are particularly important as there is a vowel sound in every syllable of spoken English. Of the 44 speech sounds in English, 19 are vowel sounds.
When introducing the letter we use to write the /s/ sound down a teacher might write or display the letter ‘s’ and say “we use this letter to write down the /s/ sound. The name of this letter is “ess”. Children learn letter representations for each of the 44 sounds of English. When they see a letter or digraph they should be able to say its sound. They then learn to blend (put together) these sounds to make words. Once they can do this they are reading words.
There are numerous ‘Synthetic Phonic’ programs available and they all have more or less the same set of sounds. There are a few small differences. Each program has its own order for introducing the sounds, but evidence suggests that as long as all the sounds are covered, the order doesn’t seem to matter. Generally programs introduce commonly used consonants and short vowel sounds first, followed by long vowels, digraphs, adjacent consonants and r-controlled vowel sounds (such as /er/ and /or/). Children learn one way of writing down each of the sounds and are then gradually introduced to spelling alternatives for each of the sounds. Sometimes they are still learning about the more complex spelling alternatives in upper primary or even secondary school. For example, we first learn that the /s/ sound is written down using the letter ‘s’ (as in sun). Later we learn that we can write the /s/ sound using the letter ‘c’ (as in city) or ‘sc’ (as in science), and later still we learn that we can write down the /s/ sound using the letters ‘ps’ (as in psychic) or ‘st’ (as in listen).
There are many synthetic phonics reading series. Two of the series recommended by DSF include: the Dandelion Readers series and the Read Write Inc Phonics series. Both of these series follow a very structured, systematic introduction of new sounds and letters, in reading books that are both appealing and entertaining.
It is important to remember that English is not a completely regular language. There are well over 600,000 words in the Oxford English Dictionary and the majority of these have been taken directly from other languages: Latin, French, Greek, to name a few. Although they have been absorbed into English, the words have retained much of their original spelling. This is why English takes so much longer to learn than many other alphabetic languages and explains why there are so many spelling alternatives for some of the speech sounds. It is important to remember that it is not, however, a completely irregular language, and it is far easier to learn and recognise the patterns that are there, than it is to try and remember every word individually.
As the other alternatives are introduced to the children, and they develop a knowledge of word families, their spelling will improve. Also as children read more, and see the words in their reading, they begin to learn and recognise which way words are spelt.
They might be able to think it looks like another word they know (although this is quite a complicated thought process that small children find very difficult, and of course they might be totally wrong). They might be able to guess the meaning of the word from the context of the other words about it, but they have no way of decoding the word if they do not have this phonic knowledge. Good readers rarely guess using context clues, poor readers try to guess from the context (or pictures) frequently. Good readers don’t need to rely as much on context clues because their decoding skills are so strong.
Guessing from context is frequently unsuccessful, time consuming and reduces fluency. It has been estimated that only one out of every four words within a passage can be predicted using context cues and that only about 10% of content words can be predicted using this strategy – generally students need to be able to decode these words in order to make sense of what they are reading.
Poor readers also tend to rely on initial consonant cues, guessing the word on the basis of the first one or two letters.
Children who are dyslexic usually stand out as their reading ability does not match with their abilities in other ways. Reading can be a slow and frustrating journey but because the system is logical and goes forward step by step they are usually successful using a Synthetic Phonics approach.
However, research also demonstrates that all children benefit from phonics instruction, learning to read and write at a faster rate than they would without phonics. It is also the case that some children, who have been taught to read using other methods, seem at first to be making good progress but then seem to stumble. Frequently, these children have relied on visual-memory strategies and to begin with they learn the words quickly by memorising them as whole words. As they progress though, the number of words they need to know increases, and eventually they slow down (usually around Year 2 or 3). They then find it difficult to move forward. These children have to be taught the code if they are to continue to make good progress with their reading, and cope with more difficult words.
Those children relying on visual memory strategies to read can be identified using a nonsense word test. Nonsense words are “made up” words, for example ‘zam’. Because these words are invented, the child will not have seen them before and in order to read them he/she will have to decode them. There are two nonsense word tests available to download from The Reading Reform Website (www.rrf.org.uk). If children struggle to complete a nonsense word test, then teaching them the principles of Synthetic Phonics will assist them to continue to be good readers and make good progress. Using nonsense words is a good way to help these children break the visual memorising strategy.
The Reading Reform Website – www.rrf.org.uk
Letter c
Letter x
Letter q(u)*
* the q is almost always paired with the letter u.

In this section:
- Appendix 1: Processing weaknesses are common in children with learning disabilities
- Appendix 2: A Parent’s Guide to IEPs
- Appendix 3: Structured Synthetic Phonics: A Guide for Teachers and Parents
- Appendix 4: Examples of High Quality, Evidence-based Phonics Programs
- Appendix 5: Recommended Apps List
- Appendix 6: Useful Resources for parents