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: