SYNTHETIC PHONICS
DEC
01 2005
This is the most
pathetic saga of all in the story of British education. There is no
other way you can teach people to read English other than 'synthetic
phonics' unless they are surrounded in their everyday life by people
who can talk proper English. That does not mean English with any
particular accent, but it does mean English where all the vowels are
pronounced in a distinct way and all the consonants pronounced in the
standard way. But most young people are no longer in such an
environment. We now have BBC presenters who talk of 'Droring' and
'Lore and Order' etc. etc. - and that is presumably due to the fact
that they were never taught to read, write or speak using what is now
called Synthetic Phonics (but anyhwere else, or at any other time,
would be called Common Sense). Nobody can learn English by just picking
the language up and then associating it with words except after a
fashion that goes steadily downhill from generation to generation till
it disappears up its own estuary.
There is no
reason why all teaching of English should not revert to being correctly
taught immediately. The other ways that people learn words are methods
that come later, even though they may be more productive for certain
children.