Synthetic Phonics

The Whole Word Method:
Letter Sounds or Whole Words?

Controversy has been widespread over the years about the best way to teach children reading and spelling.

Should they be taught using the letter sounds - phonics - or by learning whole words?

Teaching letter sounds gives children the ability to work out simple words which can be sounded out, words like: bed, cat, log, pig, fish, deck, thin, etc.

The problem is that the most interesting words for children often cannot be easily sounded out.

Children are stimulated and excited by words like: dinosaur, ghost, ice-cream, delicious, skeleton, mummy, etc. So which is the better method?

Research findings now show that children who are taught using synthetic phonics make great leaps in progress compared to children taught by other methods.

But what about those exciting words the children need to maintain their motivation?

If they are only allowed to use letter sounds, they will be limited to reading uninteresting sentences like:

Ron and meg can run in the hut. Ron can run. Meg can run. Run, Ron, run! Run, Meg, run!

Whole series of children's reading books used to be produced with meaningless sentences like these, and the children quickly reached their boredom threshold.

As a reaction to these tedious stories, publishers began to ignore the need to sound out words, and moved on to the Whole Word method.

Children were given books with sentences like:

The sleeping dinosaur twitched.Edward and Lucy were terrified. They inched out of the cave but froze as the vast creature slowly awoke .

Engaging stuff - as long as you can read it!

Fast learners had little problems: they seem to be able to learn by almost any method.

However, the average children and those with a learning disability like dyslexia were stuck.

They could not read the words.

It appears that children need to use both methods.

Starting with synthetic phonics, they can learn to work out those little words which can be sounded out (bat, dog, cat, etc.), and, if they are introduced gradually, more exciting words can be added (dinosaur, ice-cream, etc.).

This allows them, after the introduction of a few 'sight words' (Whole Word method), to read much more interesting sentences, such as:

Jan and Meg are in the hut. Jan has an ice-cream. Jan drops the ice-cream. Jan is sad. Meg gets .

What type of phonics program?

Letter sounds have been taught to children for many decades, but without the success that has been enjoyed by children in the most recent Scottish research program.

So what is the difference?

Traditional phonics programs have simply taught children to try to read a book and stop when they come across an unknown word. They should then try to work it out from its sounds.

This is known as analytical phonics and has never been as successful as synthetic phonics.

From the child's point of view, it has made it impossible to get on with the story and find out what is happening.

This has killed their motivation to want to read.

A program of synthetic phonics separates reading single words from reading stories.

Whilst it needs a trained teacher or parent with the techniques to train children to actively learn the letter sounds in a non-threatening manner, the method can be learned by any teacher or parent.

Used in conjunction with the Whole Word method, synthetic phonics is by far the best method for teachers and parents, leading to optimum learning for children in reading and spelling.

John Bradford
World of Dyslexia
July 2005

Related Links

• Cracking the Literacy Nut

Correspondence

Best of Both Methods (1)

I have just taken an excellent workshop that takes the best of whole language and phonics and combines them into an excellent process. I found the information on this workshop and many others on the homepage of Erickson Learning. (L.S.)

Best of Both Methods (2)

I'm curious exactly what the combination amounts to. As far as I can tell, either you teach phonics or you don't. Just dribbling in a few phonetic principles here and there is *not* to teach phonics. When you teach it, the children have a much better chance >of learning how to read at a relatively early age, like their European and Asian counterparts. (R.T.)

Best of Both Methods (3)

1) Teaching phonics alone is not the same as teaching reading. It's the same as teaching ... phonics.
2) Some children learn to read well without phonics. I still advocate the use of phonics, but I went to grade school in the early 60's when whole word/look-say was used and learned to read quickly. My daughter's early years included very little phonics instruction and she is also an excellent reader. My son is very different. He needs phonics. But until just about *now* (second quarter of first grade) he has not been skilled enough to handle even phonics instruction. Things are finally starting to click. Let the show begin...
3) The workshop described does a disservice as phonics should not be separated from whole language in the first place. (Andy)

Best of Both Methods (4)

I'm also curious. Exactly what you take "whole language" to mean -- in concrete, practical terms, not in further jargon. You see, if it involves "whole word" learning or the "look-and-say" method at all, I have to say that evidently the phonics part of the combination is not done well. Once a child knows how to read using phonic principles, there is no need for any of this "look-and-say" stuff, feeding them a few new words to recognize each lesson, and so forth. They're off and running. (Mary T.)

Best of Both Methods (5)

have also just taken a brilliant workshop founded on similar principles. It was called Animated Literacy by Jim Stone. He has merged latest research from the fields of teachning, reading and speech-language pathology. He incorporates alot of phonological awareness training with print in an fun music filled curriculum that is surrounded by reading from great literature. It was so much fun and he is getting great results. I'd be interested in hearing more about your experience. (APETRA)