Synthetic Phonics Glossary
We understand that when you first come across synthetic phonics you can feel overwhelmed by the technical terminology: it can make it seem exotic and a specialism - which is a worry when you are the grown up who is meant to be doing the teaching!
Here are the terms you will need to get to grips with to teach a synthetic phonics programme. Do share them with the children... they will soon pick them up.
Blending
The process bringing the phonemes together to make a word or a syllable. Blending is how /c/ /a/ /t/ becomes cat.
Camera words
The DfES calls these 'tricky' or 'irregular, high frequency words'. These are words which, at the child's current reading stage, cannot yet be easily decoded. The child must look at the word and see if they know any of the phonemes and then go on to remember the tricky, irregular part. Each level of the Get Reading Right books has a Camera book to teach these words and there is a guided tour on how to best use the Camera books.
Consonant blends
There is no need to teach consonant blends. A consonant blend is when two or more constant sounds come together. These are decodable so they no longer need to be taught separately as something special. For example /bl/. If the child already knows the phoneme /b/ and the phoneme /l/ and how to blend them together why does she need to learn /bl/? It is using valuable memory!
Decoding
Decoding is the process of unlocking the written word. For example, a child sees the word cat and needs to know that ‘C’ is sounded as /c/, ‘A’ is sounded /a/ and ‘T’ is sounded /t/. These phonemes are then blended (glued) together to say the word cat. This is reading.
Digraph
Two or more letters come together to make one phoneme. /oa/ makes the one sound in boat.
Encoding
Synthetic phonics teaches children that the English alphabetic code is reversible; if you can read a word you can spell it. Encoding is listening for the sounds and deciding which letters represent those phonemes. Also known as spelling!
Fidelity
This is the main criteria for any synthetic phonics sequence. All it means is that none of the 44 sounds should be left out and they are taught in a systematic fashion with each new step building on the previous one. Once a sequence is chosen it is unwise to start adding bits from here and there.
Irregular, High Frequency Words
Words which cannot be decoded easily, at this stage in the child's education, and so have to be approached a little differently. They require two skills: phoneme knowledge, and visual memory of the tricky part. Get Reading Right calls them Camera words - which child wants to know them as 'irregular, high frequency words'?!
Letters and Sounds
Letters and Sounds is the 2007 UK DfES six-phase teaching programme, which contains an order in which the 44 phonemes may be taught. It begins with the group of 8 phonemes /s/ /a/ /t/ /p/ /i/ /n/ /m/ /d/.
Making and Breaking
A Get Reading Right technique to help a child practise spelling by reading out the word and asking the child to spell it using magnetic letters and a white board or letter tiles.
Phoneme
The smallest unit of sound and a piece of terminology that children like to use and should be taught. At first a phoneme will be represented by a single letter but later on will include the digraphs.
Playing with Sounds
The 2004 UK DfES programme which contains an order in which the 44 phonemes can be taught. This was the first synthetic phonics document that replaced ‘Progression in Phonics’ and is still in use in many schools. It begins with the group of 8 phonemes /s/ /m/ /t/ /g/ /c/ /p/ /a/ /o/.
Schwa
The vowels sounds that are pronounced in a reduced form in normal speech, e.g. listen to the /u/ in circus or the /i/ in pencil.
Synthetic Phonics
Synthetic phonics is the teaching of reading and spelling that teaches all the 44 phonemes of the English language in a systematic and structured fashion.
Trigraph
/igh/ is a trigraph: it is three letters representing one phoneme. Note however that /str/ is not a trigraph. It has three phonemes: /s/, /t/, and /r/, and is a constant blend. It should not be confused with a true trigraph and not taught as one phoneme.
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