Grow the Code uses a systematic synthetic phonics approach to teaching children to read.
- systematic: teach systematically in an order e.g. the letter s followed by a then t then
- synthetic: to synthesise individual phonemes, from left to right all through the word
- phonics: hearing and identifying letter sounds and matching them to their letters or letter patterns. e.g. ‘ai’ makes an ‘ai’ sound.
Systematic Synthetic Phonics is a proven method for teaching children to read. With this structured approach, children learn the relationships between spoken sounds and written letters, using the 44 sounds of the English language to form words.
Grow the Code starts by teaching the small group of commonly occurring sounds, 's', 'a', 't', 'p', . By learning these essential letters and their combinations, children can quickly begin reading basic sentences and words. With this solid foundation, they can then progress to more complex words and sounds.
After children are taught individual sounds, they learn how to blend these sounds together to form words (also known as decoding). In reverse, a word can be segmented, or broken up into individual sounds for spelling (also known as encoding).
The end goal is for students to blend and segment sounds to make words until the words are so familiar that the spelling, pronunciation, and meaning of words is held in the child’s memory and the words are recognised automatically. This is known as orthographic mapping. But also to retain excellent phonemic awareness skills so they are always able to break down new words (even in adult life) for reading and spelling.
The following are the Core Criteria of a successful Systematic Synthetic Phonics (SSP) programme that Grow the Code targets:
- Present systematic synthetic phonic work as the prime approach to decoding print
- Enable children to start learning phonic knowledge and skills early
- Be designed for daily teaching sessions and teach the main grapheme-phoneme correspondences of english (the alphabetic principle) in a clearly defined, incremental sequence
- Begin by introducing a defined group of grapheme-phoneme correspondences that enable children to read and spell many words early on
- Progress from simple to more complex phonic knowledge and skills, cumulatively covering all the major grapheme-phoneme correspondences in English
- Teach children to read printed words by identifying and blending (synthesising) individual phonemes, from left to right all through the word
- Teach them to apply the skill of segmenting spoken words into their constituent phonemes for spelling and that this is the reverse of blending phonemes to read words
- Provide the opportunity for them to practise and apply known grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs) for spelling through the dictation of sounds, words and sentences
- Ensure they’re taught to decode and spell common-exception words (sometimes called ‘tricky’ words), appropriate to their level of progress in the programme
- Provide resources that support the teaching of lower-case and capital letters correctly, with clear start and finish points, and that will move children on by teaching them to write words made up of learned GPCs, followed by simple sentences composed from such words and any common-exception words learned
- Be built around direct teaching sessions, with extensive teacher-child interaction and a multi-sensory approach
- Provide resources to enable teachers to deliver the programme effectively, including sufficient decodable reading material to ensure children can practise by reading texts closely matched to their level of phonic attainment and that do not require them to use alternative strategies to read unknown words
- Include guidance and resources to ensure children practise and apply the core phonics they’ve been taught
- Enable children's progress to be assessed, and highlight the ways in which the programme meets the needs of those at risk of falling behind, including the lowest-attaining 20%
- Provide full guidance for teachers and appropriate programme-specific training, either directly through appointed agents or remotely, with assurances that there is sufficient capacity and those delivering it have both high levels of expertise and relevant experience
Glossary:
Some of the terms used in a Systematic Synthetic Phonics program can sound confusing. Here’s a basic run down of the most common terms you’ll hear:
- phoneme – the smallest unit of speech sound in a word
- grapheme – the written letter or group of letters that represents a speech sound
- GPC - Phoneme/Grapheme Correspondence – the relationship between speech sounds and letter symbols also referred to as letter-sounds
- decoding/blending (reading) – the process of reading a word by recognising which sound (phoneme) corresponds with each letter (grapheme) and then blending these individual letters/sounds to make words.
- encoding/segmenting (spelling) – The process of spelling a word by deciding which letters represent the speech sounds.