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08: EDUCATION TODAY |
Free software to teach deaf children synthetic phonics
Published: 10 November, 2008
The THRASS synthetic phonics programme is widely accepted as
having the potential to more than double the normal rate of
progress for reading and spelling in English, and soon it will
also be possible to use synthetic phonics to teach deaf children
through a new Cued Speech version of the groundbreaking THRASS
Phoneme Machine software.
The THRASS Phoneme Machine, which uses moving human lips to
pronounce the sounds (phonemes) in hundreds of frequently used
English words, is a key component of the THRASS (Teaching
Handwriting Reading And Spelling Skills) programme pioneered by
British Educational Psychologist, Alan Davies. It is an
excellent resource for parents and teachers for learning about,
and also teaching, the fundamental building blocks of English in
an entertaining and fun way.
The value of the Phoneme Machine was recognised in the September
2007 edition of Independent Talking Points, the magazine of the
Association of Speech and Language Therapists in Independent
Practice, in which Catherine Redmayne, the editor, wrote, "I
would have paid just for some bits of this programme.
Considering the whole thing was free to download, it was a
wonderful offering from THRASS".
This latest version of the Phoneme Machine, version V6-CS,
follows a request from Cued Speech Association UK to include a
Cued Speech option, and is being developed by THRASS UK as part
of its Corporate Social Responsibility Programme, which aims to
improve the quality of life for the local community and society
at large.
In Cued Speech, each sound (phoneme) has a visual
representation. These sound-based units give deaf children
access to spoken and written English. Cued Speech uses lip
reading and eight hand-shapes in four different positions near
the mouth to represent the 44 sounds of English. The combination
of the hand shape, the hand position and the lip shape makes
every sound of spoken language clear, so that 96 per cent of
spoken language can be lip-read accurately.
In version V6-CS, the shapes, positions and movements of the
hands will be displayed alongside moving human lips, with the
cueing for each of the 500 basewords of English demonstrated in
a video box.
www.thrass.co.uk/cuedspeech.htm
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serve customers in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, South
America, Central America
and the United States of America
Professional Development
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Teaching Handwriting Reading And Spelling
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