SYNTHETIC AND ANALYTIC PHONICS

A phoneme is a speech sound.
A grapheme is a spelling choice.

A graph is a one-letter spelling choice.
A digraph is a two-letter spelling choice.
A trigraph is a three-letter spelling choice.
A quadgraph is a four-letter spelling choice.

Synthetic Phonics requires learners to blend the phonemes in words.
Analytic Phonics requires learners to use the graphemes
in known words to read and spell new words.

In the early stages, the reading and spelling of words involves hypothesis testing
(guessing).

The more learners read (especially the ‘pretend reading’ of favourite books)
and the more that they spell (beginning with words of two and three letters)
the better and quicker they are at guessing.

So they can dedicate all or most of their attention
to the content and nature of the story.


THRASS uses the Natural Synthesis approach to synthetic phonics.

Learners are encouraged, from the outset,
to name lower-case and capital letters,
to blend (synthesize) the sounds in words
and to then use the graphs, digraphs, trigraphs and quads
in known words, to make hypotheses about the reading and spelling of new words.

For a more detailed explanation of the difference between the
Natural Synthesis approach of THRASS and the Artificial Synthesis
approach of other phonics programmes, click here.

THRASS UK is licensed to serve customers in Europe, Africa,
the Middle East, South America, Central America and the United States of America