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AFASIC NEWS
Spring/Summer 2006
Natural Synthetic Phonics: An approach to teaching literacy
to
children with speech
and language difficulties
Carolyn Arthurs, the
Head of Meadowbank School in Cardiff outlines how synthetic phonics
is used with pupils.
Meadowbank is a unique special school. It is an LEA run school for
children age 5-11 years whose primary difficulty is a
severe/profound speech, language and communication difficulty. The
school caters for children whose non-verbal skills and achievements
are generally better developed than skills and achievements that
rely on good verbal skills. These difficulties can affect a child’s
ability to understand the language of others and/or the ability to
express what they want to say. Inevitably these children have
significant ensuing problems acquiring skills of reading, writing
and understanding written language. The school works on a basis of
excellent joint working practice between Teachers, Speech and
Language Therapists and Teaching Assistants. We use a number of
specific strategies to support learning throughout the school. This
includes a sign system devised for children with speech and language
difficulties.
Eighteen months ago the school Governors agreed to support and spend
funds on developing a programme that would provide a practical
multi-sensory approach to teaching reading, handwriting and spelling
skills to the children.
Traditionally reading had been taught by introducing children to a
lower case alphabet – not at first the letter names but the letter
sounds. One letter makes one sound so they were taught 23 of these
and children were then taught to read write read and spell words
using these associations.
Which programme did we select and why?
The programme we selected was one that had already been used with
children with speech and language difficulties and found to be
particularly appropriate in meeting their needs.
It was a substantial investment for the school. All twenty staff had
to complete two days training, as well as observing good practice in
another school where the system was well established, and of course
resources are an investment, including those made by the staff. The
programme is called THRASS (Teaching Handwriting, Reading And
Spelling Skills). It is a whole school programme for teaching the
building blocks of reading and spelling – that means the 44 sounds
(phonemes) of spoken English and their 120 main spelling choices
(graphemes) of written English.
Hampshire Education Authority had confirmed the research findings
first reported in 2003 by the Department of Education and Skills, in
the document “Targeting Support: Choosing and Implementing
Interventions for Children with Significant Literacy Difficulties”
(Ref: DfES 0201/2003), that the THRASS phonics program was able to
“at least double the normal rate of progress” made by primary school
children that have reading and spelling difficulties.
So what does it mean to teach 44 phonemes and 120 main spelling
choices?
J Pronounced as a sound not as ‘jay’, is a phoneme. It has 4
spelling choices:
j as in jam; g as in giant; ge as in cage; dge as in bridge.
So all the phonemes and all their spelling choices must be taught in
this complex language of ours.
Why did we choose this approach for our highly specialised school
1. Learning the 44 phonemes (sounds) in English is fundamental to
children who have phonological and articulation difficulties. It can
be taught alongside ‘cued articulation’. It forms the basis for
joint planning for literacy between Teachers and Therapists.
2. The whole approach to learning the basics is very visual and
requires rehearsal and repetition – this suites the learning style
of children with speech and language difficulties.
3. The picture charts from which the children learn the building
blocks form a constant reminder and reference as children progress
up the school. Our children at Meadowbank often have memory problems
and the picture charts can be taken and used as a reference even
when the child leaves the school. They serve to constantly support
their spelling and writing skills.
4. There is a musical element to the work covered and this again
suits the learning styles of our children. They use lively raps and sequences to familiarise
themselves with the picture charts.
5. The highly structured, repetitious nature of the programme is
well suited to children with any sort of learning difficulty. Our children need a
predictable and reinforced environment and THRASS is able to offer
that.
6. The language of instruction used to teach THRASS is very
consistent as all the staff at the school have undertaken training.
What are the drawbacks of using this system?
At first it can seem extremely daunting to be faced with teaching a
class of Key Stage 1 children with learning and language
difficulties the building blocks of reading and spelling – the 44
sounds of spoken English (phonemes) and their 120 main spelling
choices (graphemes) of written English. But we have found that
children actually positively enjoy the work and we haven’t yet seen
any of the children confused.
Is this all that we use at Meadowbank to teach, reading, writing and
spelling?
No we use a variety of strategies, techniques and resources to
reinforce the basics of THRASS. THRASS is fundamental to how we
approach literacy, but it by no means stands alone.
Evaluating our work and the outcomes:
It is still early days for any full evaluation. However, already
staff and children are comfortable with its use and it has become a
true ‘whole school strategy’.
Each year we have to set whole school targets. At Meadowbank the
targets are based on individual pupil targets from their termly
I.E.P.s (Individual Education Plans). Our literacy targets have
improved by 6.7% over the last two years.
Whole school monitoring and evaluation of teaching and learning over
the last two years has included class observation of THRASS. There
has been positive feedback from the Coordinator and senior
management team.
A recent full evaluation meeting involving all staff has been held
with an in depth discussion about progress. Adjustments have been
recommended and further ‘good practice’ observation arranged.
For more information on THRASS log on to
www.thrass.co.uk
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