Systematic Synthetic Phonics (SSP) An Introduction Justine Earl Canterbury Christ Church University

Systematic Synthetic Phonics (SSP)An Introduction

Justine Earl Canterbury Christ Church University

What is reading?

Reading is much more than the decoding of black marks upon the page: it is a quest for meaning and one that requires the reader to be an active participant.

English for Ages 5-16 (The Cox Report, 1989)


Phonics: the most straightforward part of English

It is self-contained (discrete).It is clearly structured

(systematic)It is supported by a scheme –

providing the content, progression, assessment tools and ideas.

There is a wealth of resources to help.

It is skills based.


Phonics: what makes it seem difficult.

The new technical vocabulary.It is a skill you as a reader do not

use consciously.The current focus and emphasis

on phonics.The use of a scheme.


What matters for the childrenTheir phonic input matches their needs.The skills they learn in the discrete

phonics sessions are applied when they read and write.

There is not a linear approach to learning to read – those children still tackling decoding can also demonstrate more advanced reading skills.

Any focus on phonics is balanced by the rest of the English / literacy curriculum.


Some Key Statements to Understand

There are around 44 phonemes in the English language. Letters are symbols (graphemes), which represent the

sounds (phonemes) in words. A phoneme can be represented by a grapheme made up of one or more letters: c/a/t, k/ee/p, h/igh, th/r/ough.

A phoneme can be spelt in more than one way. So one sound can have different representations: day, great, make, paper.

Some graphemes represent more than one phoneme. So one spelling but more than one sound: bread, bead, steak.

You need to teach the skill of blending the phonemes together in a word in order to be able to decode it.

c-a-t cat. You need to teach the skill of segmenting each phoneme

in a word in order to be able to spell it. cat c-a-t.


+

+

-

-

Word

recog

nit

ion

Good language

comprehension, poor word recognition

Good word recognition,

good language

comprehension

Poor word recognition,

poor language comprehensio

n

Good word recognition,

poor language

comprehension

Language comprehension


Some key terms to knowPhoneme: smallest unit of soundGrapheme: symbol which represents

the phonemeGPCs: grapheme-phoneme

correspondencesDigraphTrigraphAdjacent consonants /consonant clusterBlending for readingSegmenting for spelling


Indicating phonemes: sound buttons

c a t


Indicating the phonemes: phoneme frame

c a t



d o g



s t r u t



ch a t



ch ur ch



s c r u n ch


Indicating phonemes

h igh


Making the long ‘a’ phoneme

ay ai a-esay rain make

tray Spain cake

play snail game


Making the long ‘a’ phoneme

a ei eigha vein eight

Rachel rein weight

reign


Some key terms to knowPhoneme: smallest unit of soundGrapheme: symbol which represents

the phonemeGPCs: grapheme-phoneme

correspondencesDigraphTrigraphAdjacent consonants /consonant clusterBlending for readingSegmenting for spelling


Key phonic knowledgeA phoneme can be represented

by one or more lettersThe same phoneme can be

represented in more than one way.

The same spelling may represent more than one phoneme.

A grapheme is the representation of the phoneme – so may be more than one letter. Justine Earl Canterbury Christ

Church University

Reading for pleasure and for life

http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/resources/videos/3858_reading_for_life_not_for_tests





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Systematic Synthetic Phonics (SSP) An Introduction Justine Earl Canterbury Christ Church University