Synthetic vs Analytic Phonics

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• Synthetic vs Analytic Phonics
• Reading Association of Ireland
• 2006
• Kathy Hall
• The Open University

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SOCIETY
LOCAL COMMUNITY
FAMILY
SCHOOL LITERACY CURRICULUM AND PEDAGOGY
CLASSROOM LITERACY CURRICULUM AND PEDAGOGY
LITERACY AND LEARNER IDENTITIES
TEXT CRITIC
TEXT USER
TEXT COMPREHENDER
TEXT PRODUCER
LITERACY DIMENSIONS AND ROLES
CONVENTIONS OF PRINT
AP
AP
Alphabetic Principle
(Hall, 2006, adapted from Taylor et al, 2001)
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The Phonics DebateSynthetic Analytic

• Sounding out and blending
• Letter by letter phonological decoding
• Small phonological units (the phoneme)

• Perceiving patterns and drawing inferences
• Key words that contain common spelling patterns
• Large phonological units (onsets and rimes)

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The Phonics Debate contd.

• Phonological Awareness speech can be broken
  down into smaller units
• Phonemic awareness phonological awareness linked
  to letters
• Example consider the word predict

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The Phonics Debate contd.

• Where does the alignment of synthetic phonics and
  small phonological units (phonemes) come from?
• And the alignment of analytic phonics and large
  phonological units (onsets/rimes) come from?

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Clues about a Developmental Sequence and
Progression

• There is good evidence that the development of
  phonological skills in young children proceeds
  from early awareness of large units (syllables
  onset-rimes) to later awareness of small units
  (phonemes).

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The Human Brain Pattern Recognition

• ai mail
• paint
• constrain
• ? complaint

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Causes Consequences

• Phoneme awareness is both a cause and a
  consequence of acquiring letter knowledge

Phonological
Phonemic
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The Complex Orthography

• Notice
• the t in native, nation, and nature
• the long e in be, bee, key, ski, sea an baby
• exceptions in spellings like maid said, or hear
  heart
• words like sight easier to read by analogy to a
  clue word like fight but not decoded letter by
  letter
• ?Analogy training seems essential

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Orthography contd.

• Phonemes and rimes are linked
• Orthographic consistency and pedagogy are linked

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Separating Decoding and Comprehension?

• Reading comprehension is heavily dependent on
  semantic and syntactic skills i.e. comprehension
  (also) depends on skills beyond the phonemic
  domain

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What does the act of reading require for the
beginner reader?

• cultural
• communicative
• verbal reasoning
• graphic and sound
• semantic
• syntactic

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The Profound Significance of Teachers

• Teachers make a bigger difference than methods
• Teachers make more of a difference in schools in
  poor areas than in affluent areas
• Good teaching can even compensate for the
  limitations and constraints of poor programmes,
  textbooks, curricula etc.

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What do accomplished early years literacy
teachers do?

• Integrate apply
• Coach
• Assess formatively
• Provide extensive experience with texts
• Teach in small groups

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• References
• Hall, K. (2006) How children learn to read and
  how phonics helps Chapter One In M. Lewis and
  S.Ellis Phonics Practice, Research and Policy.
  London Sage
• Hall, K. (2003) Listening to Stephen read
  multiple perspectives on literacy Buckingham
  Open University Press (see pages 67-101)
• Hall, K. (2003) Review of Research on Effective
  Literacy Teaching In J. Marsh, N. Hall and J.
  Larson (Eds) pp315-326 Handbook of Research on
  Childhood Literacy London Sage.