Synthetic Phonics For CLIL

Teachers

Session 1

Sarah Forsey - Profesora de inglés, Centro de Lenguas

Introductions

• My name is…

SARAH

I’M FROM…

CHAGFORD

My teaching aims…

By the end of this session I want my students to be able to:

- Understand why synthetic phonics are taught in bilingual

schools in Spain.

- Distinguish and pronounce the different sounds of the

alphabetic code correctly.

- Understand, use and teach the alphabetic code.

- Be more interested in and confident about teaching

synthetic phonics.

- Use the ideas and resources from this session in their

classes.

Starting points…

• How much do you already know about synthetic

phonics? QUIZ

• Why are you doing this course? What do you

want or need to learn from it?

(Be honest please!)

A (very) Short History of Synthetic

Phonics

• Alphabetic method (names of the letters in

alphabetical order)

• Look and say or Whole Word Method

(repetition and memorisation)

• One, two, three and away!

Synthetic Phonics

• In the UK it started to become popular in

the 1980-90s.

• It was brought to Spain with the British

Council / MEC Bilingual project.

Synthetic Phonics v. Other

Methods

1. Have you heard of

Michael Rosen?

2. What’s his opinion of

phonics programs?

3. What’s his strategy?

4. What do you think?

/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4uocSjKcIQ

So… Now we know the

theory, let’s start with the

practice.

So what is Synthetic Phonics???

• Synthetic Phonics uses the

concept of 'synthesising', which

means 'putting together' or

'blending'. Simply put, the sounds

prompted by the letters are

synthesised (put together or

blended) to pronounce the word.

Examples..

• Fred talk

• Metal Mike / Robbie the Robot http://resources.sparklebox.org.uk/sb1397.pdf

• Can you guess the following words?

How it works – The 5 basic skills

(Jolly Phonics program)

• 1. Learning the letter sounds

• 2. Learning letter formation

• 3. Blending

• 4. Identifying the sounds in words (Segmenting)

• 5.Tricky words

1. Learning the (letter)

sounds sounds

http://www.sparklebox.co.uk/literacy/letters-and-sounds/phase1.html#.V-

w8yoiLTMw

1.1 Learning the letter sounds.

Do you recognise these charts?

https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/phonemic-chart

https://elt.oup.com/student/englishfile/elementary/c_pronunciation/?cc=u

s&selLanguage=en

Well… Synthetic phonics is

similar.

• Instead of symbols, pictures are used to

teach the main phonemes (sounds) of the

English language.

• These pictures are supported by a story, a

song and an action. This is a MULTI-

SENSORY approach that caters for

different learning styles and multiple

intelligences.

1.1 Learning Letter Sounds

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EC5kOVb6hyg

In what order should we teach

the sounds?

Before we can teach, first

we need to learn the

sounds.

• To do this we need to

familarize ourselves with the

Alphabetic code…

The Alphabetic Code

Presentation of the English Alphabetic Code

http://www.slideshare.net/juanantonioperezbello/the-english-

alphabetic-code

Video Pronunciation of the Alphabetic code

Why is it important to learn the

sounds correctly?• Young children can identify and repeat

sounds more accurately. This will help

their pronunciation. Remember that there

are many more phonemes in English than

in Spanish.

• For this method to work at higher levels,

it’s important to be able to match

graphemes with their correct sounds.

Let’s practise pronouncing

the sounds correctly…Sounds• http://jollylearning.co.uk/gallery/audio-2/

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ksblMiliA8

Songs

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCjJYB07aSU

• https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/phonemic-chart

• https://elt.oup.com/student/englishfile/elementary3/c_pronunciation/

pronunciation?cc=global&selLanguage=en

1.2 Teaching Letter Sounds

• The stories (Jolly Phonics, Yo Yo Phonics)

• Realia

• The songs

• Names with the letters

• Words they already know (You can accept Spanish words too)

• I spy

• Pairs game

• Art and crafts

• Music and movement

• Worksheets / Workbooks

Practising the letter sounds

• Allow plenty of time.

• Vary the activities.

• Make it fun – children don’t like drilling.

• Encourage autonomy (corners, peer and

self assessment)

Goodbye!(Now can you write that with Jolly Phonics

symbols? And how could you teach your pupils

to spell it? How would they spell it?)