Synthetic Phonics

Synthetic Phonics Outperforms the UK Literacy Hour

According to the uk Times newspaper, a radical way of teaching children to read has out performed the Government's preferred literacy strategy where a literacy hour is taught every day in primary schools in England.

The one year pilot study of three hundred schoolchildren in Scotland showed those taught using 'synthetic phonics' were 7 months ahead with their reading and nine months ahead with their spelling compared to the Government's strategy.

The method was pioneered by Dr Rhona Johnston, and consists of boosting children's reading spelling and phonemic awareness through learning just 6 letters a day.

Children are taught the 42 letter sounds at six a day over eight days.

At the same time, they are taught to identify letters in the initial, middle, and final position in words and to sound and blend words using magnetic letters.

Anne Pearson, headteacher of Park primary school in Clackmannanshire said, 'The children are a year ahead of their chronological age. They have done two years work in one year.This is the most deprived school in Clackmannanshire.out kids are now achieving levels above pupils from well to do areas. Poverty does not need to hinder learning'.

(TES, 6 November 1998)

(With many thanks to the excellent Times Educational Supplement.)