What is synthetic phonics?

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ReadingTeacher.com

I just got an email from Francis Morgan of the ReadingTeacher.com website, suggesting I add his program to my resource list.

Absolutely! I can’t believe I haven’t noticed it before. It looks like a really nice, explicit, systematic, synthetic phonics program for little kids.

It’s from the US so the sounds will be slightly different from the Australian English I speak, and from UK and other Englishes without a syllable-final “r” sound. But small Australian children know what the American accent is from watching TV, so for little learners without speech-language difficulties this shouldn’t be a major barrier.

Some of this program is free and the rest looks good value for money. To find out more about it, click here.

Video explaining synthetic phonics

I work mostly with older, struggling learners, many of whom also have spoken language difficulties. Thanks to all the research I’ve done for this blog, I have a long resources-to-buy wishlist for my clinic. So a ReadingTeacher.com subscription is lower down my own list than resources specifically targeting older, reluctant readers.

However, this site’s 10-minute video explaining what Synthetic Phonics is, and is not, is relevant to teaching beginners or strugglers of any age group. Highly recommended, here it is:

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3 responses to “What is synthetic phonics?”

  1. […] years teachers in the UK have for some years been required to include explicit, systematic synthetic phonics in their literacy teaching, along with work on vocabulary, fluency and comprehension (nobody is […]

  2. David says:

    The video link was missing from the article, but for other readers, I believe this is the video
    https://youtu.be/qvXpyWquBDw

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