The Effects of Synthetic Phonics Teaching on Reading and Spelling Attainment

The Effects of Synthetic Phonics Teaching on Reading and Spelling Attainment - A seven year longitudinal study.

"1. We report here a study of the effectiveness of a synthetic phonics programme in teaching reading and spelling. Around 300 children in Primary 1 were divided into three groups. One group learnt by the synthetic phonics method, one by the standard analytic phonics method, and one by an analytic phonics programme that included systematic phonemic awareness teaching without reference to print. At the end of the programme, the synthetic phonics taught group were reading and spelling 7 months ahead of chronological age. They read words around 7 months ahead of the other two groups, and were 8 to 9 months ahead in spelling. The other two groups then carried out the synthetic phonics programme, completing it by the end of Primary 1.

2. We have followed the progress of all of these children for 7 years, examining their performance in word reading, spelling and reading comprehension. At the end of Primary 2, the boys performed equally well in word reading, regardless of which method they had started with in Primary 1. However, the girls read words significantly less well if they had started with the standard analytic phonics programme. Furthermore, both boys and girls were behind in spelling if they had started with the standard analytic phonics programme, even if it had been supplemented with systematic phonemic awareness training."