What does psycholinguistics tell us about the best way to teach children to read?

Psycholinguists assert that the primary thing children should discover when learning to read, is the
alphabetic principle. Although there are numerous approaches, studies show children without this
basic alphabetic understanding struggle with literacy. The whole-word method teaches reading
through the individual sound of isolated words. However, it is evidently inefficient to learn similar
words like hat and rat without understanding their shared characteristics. Alternatively, the phonics
method, places an emphasis on turning letters, and then words, into sounds. Yet the range of
unphonetic words in English, like ghost would instigate confusion in early readers. Evidently, neither
method would work without engaging with the alphabetic principle.

The alphabetic principle helps to speed up reading development through teaching the connection
between sounds and letters. Synthetic phonics, as an improved form of the phonics method uses the
alphabet to teach letter sounds before revealing the printed word. By first learning letters like /h/
/n/ /e/ to make hen and net, children are taught to spell words from individual letters. This helps
their understanding into the flexibility of words and the correlation between sounds and letters.
Indeed, studies show that children without alphabetic knowledge were limited to only read words
they had been individually taught, and even then mistakes were frequent, evidencing the
inefficiency of alternate methods.

When teaching children to read, the alphabetic principle is the most significant concept they need to
discover. Indeed, because synthetic phonics places its importance on this understanding from 2007,
it became the recommended method of teaching reading in the UK.

PLAN

- Many established ways to teach children how to read

- Whole-word teach what individual whole words sound like e
- Phonics method teach how to turn letters into sounds then how to split words into sounds
PHONETICS IS BETTER (2001)
- Neither method in isolation would work:
Inefficient to teach similar words in isolation: cat,rat,mat
Learning to spell words that arent phonetic: ghost, aisle,
WHICH IS BETTER?
- Alphabetic principle
Speeds up reading development
Like the phonic method correlation between letters and sounds
- Comparison: children without alphabetic principle knowledge limited to read only words
theyd been taught many errors
- Synthetic phonics: accelerated form of phonics emphasises letters and letter sounds
before showing children printed words taught a few letters and their corresponding
sounds taught how they can be blended together in different ways to make different
words /h/ /n/ /e/ /t/ - hen, ten, net correspondence between sounds and letters
FIRST TAUGHT HOW TO SPELL THEN PRONUNCIATION FLUENCY OVER ACCURACY long
lasting advantages over other methods FROM 2007 PREFERRED METHOD OF
TEACHING IN UK
- Languages differ in the way sounds are translated into print Germanic languages, more
complicated than Romance (French, Italian) complexity of syllable structure