The Get Reading Right synthetic phonics programme, which fuels Phonics Hero, is used by hundreds of leading schools across Australia and Asia, and over a thousand across the globe. And no wonder! Research shows that children who learn to read with synthetic phonics are still ahead of their peers in reading and spelling some seven years later!
How is synthetic phonics more successful than older phonics approaches?
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It’s much quicker. Older approaches teach one sound a week, but synthetic phonics teaches a set of eight sounds right away, and with these eight sounds children can read and spell over 40 words! |
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Children learn reading and spelling hand-in-hand: if I can read it – I can spell it! |
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It’s rigorous – every one of the 44 sounds of the English language is taught. Many older phonics approaches only teach the basic sounds of the alphabet. By the end of a synthetic phonics programme, the most confident readers and spellers know all 44 sounds and how to spell each of these. |
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It’s systematic – we don’t learn to drive by starting with a three-point turn! Likewise, reading and spelling should start very simply and gradually build in complexity. |
How does synthetic phonics work?
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Step 1: Children learn a group of sounds, and learn to associate each sound with a letter, or group of letters. The first 8 sounds children will learn are: s, m, t, c, g, p, a, o. |
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Step 2: Children then learn to blend (or glue) the sounds together to read unknown words. For example, when a child sees the word 'pot' they read each individual sound: p-o-t, and then blend them together to read the word - pot! |
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Step 3: Next children are taught to listen for the sounds in a word and to represent each sound with a letter or letters. The child says the word 'pot' and identifies that they can hear a 'p' sound which is represented by the letter 'P', an 'o' sound represented by the letter 'O', and so on... Later children will learn that a sound can be represented by different letters, for example the sound 'c' can be spelled with a C, or a CK or a K. |
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Step 4: Irregular, high frequency words, such as 'the' and 'was' are tricky to read but are essential to learn because they occur so often in children's books. At Phonics Hero we call these camera words. |
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Step 5: Likewise children also need to learn to spell these irregular, high frequency words so they can move onto writing sentences. |
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Step 6: We put all these skills together to read sentences and stories and develop a love for reading! |
Understand the synthetic phonics logic with this video:
Try some Phonics Hero games to understand how the theory of synthetic phonics is put into practice.
