Advantages Of Phonic Teaching

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Much research has been conducted into the most effective method for teaching children a key aspect of developing early literacy skills; that is phonics. A brief explanation in regards to its components and importance in reading and writing development will be given. Considering it is a skill that must be taught, methods which support effective phonic development will also be examined. Definitions, contradictions, similarities and the resulting confusion from the lack of conformity to a singular understanding of the outlines of each method will be addressed. The one key element that is agreed upon by many, that phonics should be taught explicitly and systematically, will also be discussed. This will then lead to analysing the two main methods, …show more content…

The analytical approach analyses a single phoneme within a word, and then other words are analysed to determine if it has the same phoneme pattern. Contrasting this is the synthetic approach, in which the individual phoneme of each letter is sounded out to decode the word. To compare the two, the synthetic method utilises blending of learned phonemes for decoding, whereas analytical connects a repeated singular phoneme or letter pattern in similar words allowing children to analyse the word for recognition of meaning. The synthetic method does not work however, when words are broken down out of context. For example, the word ‘wind’ can only be sounded out and read with the correct phoneme for ‘i’ within the context of a sentence. The analytic method also has disadvantages as it encourages a child to make generalisations or guesses on what a word may mean. Regardless of these gaps, research concludes the synthetic method both here and overseas is the most successful approach to the teaching of reading and spelling. It is logical to assume that this may be the most effective method for teaching phonics as one cannot begin to read a word without first understanding the phoneme that each letter represents, however, it does not necessarily mean it is the best method to

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