Synthetic Phonics: An Analysis with Definitions
What does the NRP Report say about synthetic phonics?
Recently, somebody cited the National Reading Panel Report as clearly “proving” that synthetic phonics instruction should be used with all beginning and struggling readers. If you’re going to run around citing the National Reading Panel Report, for goodness sake, at least read the gosh darn thing … or in your case, use synthetic phonics to sound out the words. Don’t read the executive summary. That’s not the report. Don’t read what somebody else said about it. That’s not the report. Read the report. The report is the report.
The National Reading Panel Report identified six ways to teach phonics. It said that “each is equally effective.”
Equal. The same.
Effective. It works. Successful in producing the desired results.
Equally Effective
Again, the National Reading Panel Report identified six approaches to phonics instruction and said that each is equally effective.
Synthetic phonics. You put letter sounds together to create words. Letter sounds are taught in isolation, apart from authentic reading experiences.
Analytic phonics. You analyze and identify the letter-sounds within words. This can be included in authentic reading and writing experiences.
Embedded phonics. You include phonics instruction that is embedded in the stories children are reading or the things they’re writing about. This means it occurs in authentic reading and writing experiences.
Analogy phonics. This is sometimes known as large unit phonics. Here, students are taught to identify familiar parts of words, phonograms, or letter patterns. This can be included in authentic reading and writing experiences.
Onset-rime phonics. Sometimes known as word building, students build words by adding beginning sounds to familiar phonograms, and phonograms to beginning sounds.
Phonics through spelling. Here spelling instruction is combined with phonics instruction.
Implications
The implications are obvious. Since children all learn differently, one would want to include all six types of phonics instruction in a reading program - that is, if one were really committed to teaching phonics. To include only synthetic phonics is to provide one-sixth of good phonics instruction. Again, the National Reading Panel Report does not single out synthetic phonics. It does not.
Implication. Conclusions that can be drawn when something is not stated explicitly.
Obvious. Self-evident, apparent, easily perceived, or understood.
Not an Approach
Phonics is something you teach. It’s not an approach. Everybody believes in direct, explicit, and systematic phonics instruction. It’s not the ‘what’ of phonics instruction; it’s the ‘how’ and ‘how much’ of phonics instruction in which there are differences.
Phonics instruction. Something everybody in the world believes should be part of reading instruction for beginning and struggling readers.
Limited Impact of Phonics
If you were to read the National Reading Panel Report further, instead of just reading the executive summary, you would also find four other nourishing tidbits:
• The impact of phonics on comprehension is limited.
• Phonics instruction contributed only weakly, if at all, in helping poor readers apply these skills to read actual text.
• There were insufficient data to draw any conclusions about the effects of phonics instruction with normally developing readers above 1st grade.
• Phonics instruction fails to exert a statistically significant impact on poor readers in 2nd through 6th grade.
Limited. Restricted in size, amount, or extent.
Insufficient. Not enough.
Reason and Research
In any academic field, we use reason and research to come to conclusions, not personal experiences, anecdotal evidence, and superstition. We use what we find to determine what we believe. We do not use what we believe to determine what to find. We seek answers to questions, not answers to predetermined beliefs.
Ignorance. Lacking knowledge or awareness.
Synthetic ignorance. Ignorance related to synthetic phonics instruction.
Science of Reading. A social and political movement based on a lack of understanding related to both science and reading.
Settled science. In real science, there is no settled science of anything.
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🙏🏻Dr. Andy, I appreciate your clarification of the many different ways teachers can thoughtfully attend to phonics instruction. Seeing the different approaches written in print provided me with that “mic drop” moment!
And Harriett, I agree with your point that the ‘how ‘and ‘how much’ of phonics can be tricky to determine.
In my practice as a former Reading Recovery teacher and teacher leader, it was never not about developing children’s knowledge of phonics and how it supports their literacy learning. Sometimes I would dip down into drawing on a more synthetic approach—teaching much-needed sub-skills out of context—but then I’d go right back up to working with sounds and spelling patterns in the service of solving words in connected text, in both reading and writing.
As for helpful articles or resources to consult, I’d also suggest Stuart McNaughton’s (2018) book Instructional Risk in Education. As he indicates, any instructional approach carries inherent risks—practices ultimately become counterproductive when applied without consideration for how the parts relate to the whole.
Just imagine what happens to children’s learning when, as the teacher, you’re constrained to teaching not only the ‘trees’, but only those lined up in tidy rows!
Andy,
You are right to be skeptical about the National Reading Panel Report, published in 2000, 25 years ago. Here is what the NRP Report actually says about phonics:
National Reading Panel Report Quotations
Systematic phonics instruction has been used widely over a long period of time with positive results, and a variety of systematic phonics programs have proven effective with children of different ages, abilities, and socioeconomic backgrounds. These facts and findings provide converging evidence that explicit, systematic phonics instruction is a valuable and essential part of a successful classroom reading program. However, there is a need to be cautious in giving a blanket endorsement of all kinds of phonics instruction. (p. 10)
“Programs that focus too much on teacher of letter-sounds relations and not enough on putting them to use are unlikely to be very effective. In implementing systematic phonics instruction, educators must keep the end in mind and ensure that children understand the purpose of learning letter sounds and they are able to apply these skills accurately and fluently in their daily reading and writing activities.” (p. 10)
Also, we need to keep in mind that phonics instruction was a subtopic under the broader topic of "Alphabetics" and that there were only 38 research studies in the bibliography in the Appendices: Appendix A Studies included in the Meta-analysis Part II: Phonics Instruction, p. 2-145 thru 2-147.
Here are articles with a different point of view about the NRP Report:
Hammill, D. D., & Swanson, H. L. (2006). The National Reading Panel's meta-analysis of phonics instruction: Another point of view. The Elementary School Journal, 107(1), 17-26.
Krashen, S. (2005). Is in-school free reading good for children? Why the National Reading Panel Report is (still) wrong. Phi Delta Kappan, 86(6), 444-447.