06: THE APPLICATION AND USE OF
THRASS

SAALED Newsletter
(Southern African Association for  Learning and Educational Difficulties)

& also SASLHA Communiphon Magazine
(South Africa Speech Language Hearing Association) 

Lindsay Brown, Speech and Language Therapist, Winter 2006

What is THRASS?

THRASS stands for Teaching Handwriting, Reading and Spelling Skills.

It is a whole-school phonics programme for teaching learners about the building blocks of reading and spelling i.e. 44 phonemes (speech sounds) and graphemes (spelling choices) (Davies, 2006).

As Speech-Language Therapists, one of our primary focuses in auditory perceptual therapy is to build and establish a child’s phonemic awareness skills.

Phonemic Awareness is:

1. The ability to hear and manipulate the sounds in spoken words and the understanding that spoken words and syllables are made up of sequences of speech sounds (Yopp, 1992).

2. Essential to learning to read in an alphabetic writing system, because letters represent sounds or phonemes. Without phonemic awareness, phonics makes little sense.

3. Fundamental to mapping speech to print. If a child cannot hear that "man" and "moon" begin with the same sound or cannot blend the sounds r-u-n into the word "run", he or she may have great difficulty connecting sounds with their written symbols (graphemes) or blending sounds to make a word.

4. A strong predictor of children who experience early reading success.

"The best predictor of reading difficulty in the early grades is the inability to segment words and syllables into constituent sound units (phonemic awareness)" (Lyon, 1995).

Why is Phonemic Awareness important?

• It requires readers to notice how letters (graphemes) represent sounds (phonemes).
• It gives readers a way to approach sounding out and reading new words.
• It helps readers understand the alphabetic principle (that the letters in words are systematically represented by sounds).

Phonemic Awareness is difficult because:

• Although there are 26 letters in the English language, there are approximately 44 phonemes, or sound units, in the English language. Sounds are represented in 250 different spellings (e.g. /f/ as in ph, f, gh, ff).
• The sound units (phonemes) are not inherently obvious and must be taught.

Research says:

• The ability to hear and manipulate phonemes plays a causal role in the acquisition of beginning reading skills.
• There is considerable evidence that the primary difference between good and poor readers lies in the good reader's phonological processing ability.
• The effects of training phonological awareness and learning to read are mutually supportive.
• Phonemic awareness is not only correlated with learning to read, but research indicates a stronger statement is true: phonological awareness appears to play a causal role in reading acquisition.
• Phonological awareness is a foundational ability underlying the learning of spelling-sound correspondences (Stanovich, 1993-94).
• Adams (1990) reviews the research that suggests that it is critical for children to be able to link phoneme awareness to a knowledge of letters (graphemes).
• Phonemic awareness is both a prerequisite for and a consequence of learning to read (Yopp, 1992).

THRASS and Phonemic Awareness:

         THRASS is predominantly an auditory spelling and reading system that provides the link between phonemic awareness and graphemes.

THRASS teaches and strengthens a child’s phonemic awareness:

• It does not just teach isolated phonic rules.
   

• THRASS exposes children to phonemic awareness and provides auditory strategies such as identifying sounds in words, blending, segmenting sounds and rhyme.
   

• Vowel contrast work and minimal pair exercises facilitates auditory training, processing and phonological awareness.
   

• It helps to facilitate more educated “guesses” with spelling and children learn life-long word solving skills.
   

• Children are taught to blend words to form compound words.
   

• THRASS strengthens the link between auditory/phonological skills and spelling and reading.
   

• Phonological skills are taught in classrooms and teachers re-enforce therapy techniques. All the children’s auditory strategies are therefore strengthened in the classroom.

THRASS replaces “traditional phonics” where one letter makes one sound.

It exposes the children to the 44 sounds/phonemes in English and gives the children numerous ways of spelling these phonemes. In addition it encourages children to name the letters of the alphabet.

The THRASS chart teaches children to group sounds together: Traditionally, children have been taught phonic/spelling rules as isolated rules i.e. ee; oi, ow etc. Many children struggle to learn and remember these rules, as there is no systematic order and there are few strategies given to apply the rules in their written work. This can be very frustrating for children, teachers and therapists.

In the consonant section on the chart all your consonant sounds are grouped together with the different spelling choices i.e. the /k/ sound can be written in numerous ways: 

 c  k  ck  ch  qq

In the vowel section on the chart, all your vowel sounds are grouped together with the different spelling choices i.e. the /i/ sound can be written in the following ways:

ii   i-e   igh   yy

So when you teach THRASS in therapy or in the classroom, you are teaching the children to listen to vowel and consonant sounds and to link them to a written grapheme/spelling choice. By grouping spelling choices with the same sound you are developing an awareness of phoneme-grapheme correspondence. Children are taught to see letters as sound groups as opposed to isolated letters. When they are encouraged to trace over vowel phonemes in words, they learn to group sounds together, which improves their spelling and reading of words.

THRASS provides a “map”

People who have used THRASS will identify with this concept. When using the chart, children are given a visual tool or map where they can “find” all the sounds they need for spelling and reading. Children are taught to read or spell a word and are then encouraged to:

• Hear the phoneme
   

• Identify the phoneme
   

• Locate the phoneme “box”
   

• Choose the grapheme or spelling choice

Children are rewarded for using auditory strategies to spell a word and are no longer labelled as poor spellers. They are encouraged if they hear the correct sound, but choose the incorrect grapheme. 

THRASS is an organised, sequential visual system

Children with poorly developed auditory systems respond very positively to the THRASS chart as they constantly refer back to the pictures on the chart in order to spell or read a word.

THRASS strengthens vocabulary and language skills

The following areas are constantly covered in class and therapy during THRASS lessons:

1. Categorisation
2. Picture definitions and descriptions
3. Word associations 
4. Use of themes
5. Sentence and story construction

On a personal note:

I have personally used THRASS in my private practice for the last 16 months. I have found that the children in therapy are given more practical tools for reading and writing when they use THRASS and it has also had a positive impact on their phonemic awareness and auditory perceptual skills. The children have become more aware of identifying sounds more accurately as they have a logical system to refer to. Their knowledge of phonemes and graphemes has grown and this has impacted their literacy development positively.

The computer programme has also been a useful resource to use in therapy as children can practice and revise identifying phonemes and graphemes. It provides me with insight to their auditory perceptual development which assists me in setting goals for therapy.

In my therapy sessions, I use the CD with the phoneme and grapheme sequences as these are slower than the raps and it also gives me the chance to see if the child knows the names of the letters and can identify the correct vowel or consonant phonemes. The THRASS chart is also a wonderful tool for assessing a child’s articulation of speech sounds as the pictures include all the 44 phonemes that Speech-Language Therapists address,

The magnetic letters can be used for letter and sound recognition, word building, rhyme and decoding.

I believe THRASS is a very effective and useful tool to teach spelling and reading to children in therapy sessions and in the classroom.

You can contact me at gavlin@asap.co.za or 072 323 5644

References:

Adams, Marilyn Jager (1990). Beginning to Read: Thinking and Learning about Print. Cambridge, MA: Bolt, Beranek, and Newman, Inc. ED 317 950

Lyon, G. R. (1995). Toward a definition of dyslexia. Annals of Dyslexia, 45, 3-27.

Stanovich, Keith E. (1993-94). "Romance and Reality (Distinguished Educator Series)." Reading Teacher, 47(4), 280-91. EJ 477 302

Yopp, H. K. (1992). Developing Phonemic Awareness in Young Children. Reading Teacher, 45, 9, 696-703.

Davies, Alan (2006) Teaching THRASS. The Essential Guide to progression and assessment for all teachers of English.

For more information regarding THRASS please refer to the THRASS website: www.thrass.co.uk
 

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