I’m finally catching up on The Reading League’s fall issue, in particular the discussion of synthetic vs. analytic phonics.
(Phonics Wars 101 tl;dr version: Synthetic phonics describes an approach to phonics instruction focused on building and decoding words from individual grapheme/phoneme correspondences. Analytic phonics, in contrast, operates at the word level - often focused on “word families” like mine/shine/fine.
(Grapheme = letter OR letter cluster, such as ea or igh -- a graphic representation of a single unit of sound.
Phoneme = a single unit of sound)
As a long time synthetic-y teacher, I have been suspect of analytic phonics because of the floofy instructional practices that often seem to come along with it, which in my observation usually includes activities like cut-and-paste word sorts and word searches and other such gamification (beware of such activities, readily available on TpT, please do not download any of those without serious evaluation), which are also easy for kids to game -- that is, once you’ve found the pattern, you’re often doing some quick matching rather than actual decoding. These activities, incidentally, are a great way to kill time if your literacy instruction approach is centered on “centers” rather than “instruction”. Kids can do them independently because they’re… not hard.
(Phonics Wars 101 tl;dr version: Synthetic phonics describes an approach to phonics instruction focused on building and decoding words from individual grapheme/phoneme correspondences. Analytic phonics, in contrast, operates at the word level - often focused on “word families” like mine/shine/fine.
(Grapheme = letter OR letter cluster, such as ea or igh -- a graphic representation of a single unit of sound.
Phoneme = a single unit of sound)
As a long time synthetic-y teacher, I have been suspect of analytic phonics because of the floofy instructional practices that often seem to come along with it, which in my observation usually includes activities like cut-and-paste word sorts and word searches and other such gamification (beware of such activities, readily available on TpT, please do not download any of those without serious evaluation), which are also easy for kids to game -- that is, once you’ve found the pattern, you’re often doing some quick matching rather than actual decoding. These activities, incidentally, are a great way to kill time if your literacy instruction approach is centered on “centers” rather than “instruction”. Kids can do them independently because they’re… not hard.
One other common feature of analytic phonics materials that has long driven me crazy is the presence of so called “phonological awareness” practices like the coloring activity below. I was generally a bit of a grinch about these because it seemed like a lot of phonics time spent neither decoding nor encoding -- and in which the "encoding" time is a free giveaway because the rime has been provided somewhere on your materials. (To be fair, this kind of stuff is so endemic… hard to lump it in with a particular phonics approach rather than TpT-based literacy instruction more broadly, but it is what I’ve seen..)
Susan Brady’s excellent update on the NRP’s Alphabetics section in The Reading League’s Sept/Oct 2020 issue provided helpful insight around the current research base on approaches to phonological awareness and phonics instruction in our classrooms.
A few key takeaways:
On Phonological Awareness and "Coloring all the -un Pictures"
Phonological awareness is an umbrella term including phonological sensitivity and phonemic awareness. Because phonological sensitivity is often taught as a set of prerequisite skills to phonemic awareness, we see lots of activities related to rhyming and onset-rime segmentation persisting in early elementary classrooms (in my experience, particularly with struggling readers who are described as “not having phonemic awareness”).
According to Brady, “It is not necessary to devote the time and effort to foster skills in phonological sensitivity in order for children to acquire phoneme awareness”.
Our instructional time is so precious, and the above speaks to the danger of holding kids on a linear trajectory when it is possible to press fast forward. Our struggling decoders should not be wasting precious literacy block time coloring words based on onset-rime patterns that are not a mandatory pre-req for the phoneme-level code cracking they need.
A few key takeaways:
On Phonological Awareness and "Coloring all the -un Pictures"
Phonological awareness is an umbrella term including phonological sensitivity and phonemic awareness. Because phonological sensitivity is often taught as a set of prerequisite skills to phonemic awareness, we see lots of activities related to rhyming and onset-rime segmentation persisting in early elementary classrooms (in my experience, particularly with struggling readers who are described as “not having phonemic awareness”).
According to Brady, “It is not necessary to devote the time and effort to foster skills in phonological sensitivity in order for children to acquire phoneme awareness”.
Our instructional time is so precious, and the above speaks to the danger of holding kids on a linear trajectory when it is possible to press fast forward. Our struggling decoders should not be wasting precious literacy block time coloring words based on onset-rime patterns that are not a mandatory pre-req for the phoneme-level code cracking they need.
This friend missed the /g/ sound somehow in his early grades, and was pretty sketchy on his short /e/. Imagine if we sent him off to color pictures of words with /g/ instead of just practicing in different words, in different positions (initial/final). Looking at this picture now, I wish I'd thrown in some words without g too.
On Synthetic vs Analytic Phonics and These Comic-Sans-Chic Word Family Activity Packs:
Brady summarized three major experimental studies comparing synthetic and analytic approaches (in some cases, against a whole language approach which, surprise surprise, performed dismally).
One interesting finding, related to the discussion of phonemic awareness above, was that even when compared against analytic phonics + explicit phonemic awareness work, in a study by Johnson and Watson (2004), synthetic phonics outperformed the analytic groups on not only reading and spelling but also on phonemic awareness.
In both of the other two studies discussed, synthetic phonics resulted in stronger results on more advanced reading skills, e.g. fluency and accuracy, as well as spelling.
On a cognition level, it’s worth considering that synthetic phonics essentially places the cognitive load right where it should be -- helping kids develop the skill of breaking down and building words up from their fundamental component parts. Doing the thing. Reading. Spelling.
In contrast, analytic phonics could be considered an attempt to reduce cognitive load around the precise thing kids should be thinking about. It is, perhaps, scaffolding germane load.
Interestingly, the results described above also track with broader cognitive research on interleaving and blocked practice, and the concept of desirable difficulty. Practicing word families could be considered a form of blocked practice, in which the cognitive load is actually lifted so much that practice may become automatic -- as in the word sorts I’ve seen kiddos do, where once you’ve got the pattern down you’re essentially on autopilot -- such that durable learning is actually inhibited.
Brady summarized three major experimental studies comparing synthetic and analytic approaches (in some cases, against a whole language approach which, surprise surprise, performed dismally).
One interesting finding, related to the discussion of phonemic awareness above, was that even when compared against analytic phonics + explicit phonemic awareness work, in a study by Johnson and Watson (2004), synthetic phonics outperformed the analytic groups on not only reading and spelling but also on phonemic awareness.
In both of the other two studies discussed, synthetic phonics resulted in stronger results on more advanced reading skills, e.g. fluency and accuracy, as well as spelling.
On a cognition level, it’s worth considering that synthetic phonics essentially places the cognitive load right where it should be -- helping kids develop the skill of breaking down and building words up from their fundamental component parts. Doing the thing. Reading. Spelling.
In contrast, analytic phonics could be considered an attempt to reduce cognitive load around the precise thing kids should be thinking about. It is, perhaps, scaffolding germane load.
Interestingly, the results described above also track with broader cognitive research on interleaving and blocked practice, and the concept of desirable difficulty. Practicing word families could be considered a form of blocked practice, in which the cognitive load is actually lifted so much that practice may become automatic -- as in the word sorts I’ve seen kiddos do, where once you’ve got the pattern down you’re essentially on autopilot -- such that durable learning is actually inhibited.
In Spanish, qu makes /k/ before e and i, while c makes /k/ before a,o,u and consonants. It's super useful to practice at this phoneme-grapheme level, rather than in Spanish word families, which amazingly also exist on TpT. I can assure you that nary a joven in this group was on autopilot during this practice sesh.
Closing Thoughts:
In any case, if you are newer to phonics or being tortured with the mockery of phonics that is the TCRWP attempt to save face, this is just my friendly reminder that all you need is a whiteboard (or a zoom whiteboard and zoom chat!) and the individual grapheme-phoneme correspondences you’re teaching to get started.
It is worth noting that Brady adds valuable nuance to this discussion, commenting that returning to word families later “to reinforce knowledge of spelling patterns and orthographic mappings” may be helpful. I have certainly found this with older elementary students struggling with latinate affixes like -tion and -cious.
In any case, if you are newer to phonics or being tortured with the mockery of phonics that is the TCRWP attempt to save face, this is just my friendly reminder that all you need is a whiteboard (or a zoom whiteboard and zoom chat!) and the individual grapheme-phoneme correspondences you’re teaching to get started.
It is worth noting that Brady adds valuable nuance to this discussion, commenting that returning to word families later “to reinforce knowledge of spelling patterns and orthographic mappings” may be helpful. I have certainly found this with older elementary students struggling with latinate affixes like -tion and -cious.
Others have voiced important contributions on the role of morphology and morphological awareness in supporting the development of word-reading and spelling (and more!).
But for starters, we can probably stand to lean away from word families and towards practicing at the individual phoneme-grapheme level.
Recommended Reading:
A 2020 Perspective on Research Findings on Alphabetics (Phoneme Awareness and Phonics): Implications for Instruction (Expanded Version) - Susan Brady
Ending the Reading Wars - Anne Castles, Kathleen Rastle, Kate Nation
But for starters, we can probably stand to lean away from word families and towards practicing at the individual phoneme-grapheme level.
Recommended Reading:
A 2020 Perspective on Research Findings on Alphabetics (Phoneme Awareness and Phonics): Implications for Instruction (Expanded Version) - Susan Brady
Ending the Reading Wars - Anne Castles, Kathleen Rastle, Kate Nation