Friday, October 30, 2026
Synthetic phonics is key element of primary schools in English-speaking countries all over the world and is a system that has successfully been implemented for many years to work on reading and writing skills. As the use of English internationally has increased, so has the tendency to work on synthetic phonics with students whose first language is not English- meaning that they develop their reading and writing in English at the same time they are learning how to read and write in their mother tongue. If you are an English teacher who is interested in phonics and considering implementing it in your classes of Young Learners, then this is the blog post for you!
Synthetic phonics can be described as ‘the system whereby children are taught which sounds go with which letters and how they join together into words.’[1] It consists of children learning the sounds (phonemes) that letters or groups of letters represent (grapheme), then blending those sounds together to read words. It is called synthetic phonics because children 'synthesise' individual sounds to make a whole word. Children are also taught that phonemes can be made by more than one letter. We call these digraphs (two letters- such as 'sh') and trigraphs (three letters- such as 'igh')
A key difference between synthetic phonics and traditional phonology teaching in the classroom (using the IPA, for example) is that you provide children with prescriptive rules to apply when they come across the orthographic transcription of a word. Children are taught these letter–sound relationships explicitly and systematically, rather than primarily guessing words from pictures or context. They also learn segmenting, which is when they break down a spoken work into its sound units. This means that they are able to write the word that they hear.
Synthetic phonics is mostly used for primary-aged students to learn how to read and write. In an ELT context, it is implemented simultaneously whilst the students are learning these skills in their first language, meaning that it is acquired much more naturally. It’s important to note that phonological awareness can start before children even know how to identify letters. Whilst synthetic phonics specifically involves connecting phonemes with graphemes (letters), much younger children can be exposed to the sounds of the language, without necessarily being expected to read words or identify letters yet. In English-speaking countries, phonics is worked on intensively in the first few years, whereas in the ELT context, this is worked on systematically when students are in primary school.
Although it is primarily aimed at younger students, synthetic phonics can be very useful when learners have gaps in phonics or struggle to decode English, even if they are much older. For more information about using synthetic phonics with teens and adults, have a look at his blog post: https://london-school-online.com/en/article/phonics-for-teens-and-adults.
The best way to start using synthetic phonics, is to implement it as a short, systematic routine every lesson. Little and often is much more effective than trying to squeeze everything into to fewer lessons, and students will retain much more information if they revisit the content on a regular basis. They key is consistency and repeat contact with the letters and phonemes is what's going to help students remember then and be able to use them independently.
Your lessons should show a progression through the content and always start with revision of the sounds covered, before moving onto more complex sounds. Of course, this means you need to make sure you are familiar with the letters and the phonemes before you start teaching it. It’s a good idea to write out a plan for each term so you ensure you cover everything you need to. It also means that you can review what you are going to need to know well in advance and can prepare the material ahead of time.
The good news is that you don't need lots of fancy material to get started with phonics! With just a few basic resources, you can make the most of the practice in your classes. Below are some ideas of material you can use to kick start your phonics lessons:
Don’t forget to laminate all of the material you print out so you can use it with all of your students and it won’t get ruined.
When considering how to introduce phonics in our classes, we should always follow the same pattern: Hear it. Say it. Read it. Write it. This is naturally how we acquire the sounds of our first language and eventually, how we learn to read and write accurately. If a student cannot distinguish two sounds when they hear them, they are never going to be able to do say them correctly, nor put them into practice when reading and writing.
Hear it: In class, we should start by introducing the most frequent letter sounds (graphemes) to make sure that students know what phonemes they make. If you have older students, you can do this more quickly as they are already familiar with them. If the students are younger, you will go through them more slowly and they will require more repetition. The important part here is that you model the sounds and work on sound discrimination- students need to accurately identify what sounds you are producing. Working on similar sounds will help students identify small differences between sounds that they will need to master later on.
Say it: Once students are able to distinguish between the sounds, you need to work on their articulation, making sure the students can say them correctly and are intelligible. Repetition here is essential, as students need to strengthen the muscles in their mouths in order to be able to pronounce the sounds with ease. You can do this through choral drilling (as a whole group) or individual drilling (individual students). Work on this alongside letter recognition so that students associate the sound with its orthographic transcription.
Read it: Once students have mastered a good number of letter sounds, you can start blending the sounds together to make words. This can be done from as early as pre-primary, as students only need a handful of sound and letter understanding to be able to start blending them together. Start with easy CVC words (consonant-vowel-consonant) using the sounds and letters that students have already mastered well in the previous two steps (hear it and say it).
Write it: Only once you have worked on the previous three steps will you be able to work on the final step, write it. Work on spelling the words by segmenting (breaking apart) the words they hear so that they can work out which letters to use. Then, students have to put the letters together to make the word. If a student is struggling at this stage, it’s likely that the issue comes from the fact that they haven’t mastered one of the previous steps and you need to go back and clarify them.
At the same time, work on the exceptions to the rules (tricky/sight words). These should be introduced little by little and worked on in each class. Sight words need to be revisited on a regular basis so that students are familiar with them and can identify and produce them accurately.
Rather than making phonics your whole lesson, it's advisable to make it a regular and systematic part of your lesson routine. You need to combine phonics teaching with the regular language teaching that you need to do in your young learners classes, using it alongside the coursebook that you have. Depending on what you are introducing or reviewing in a certain lesson, you may want to dedicate more or less time to phonics.
In a one-hour lesson, spending around 15/20 minutes on phonics is enough to see cumulative progress and heightened phonological awareness amongst your students. As with all activities for Young Learners, keep the length age-appropriate and make sure that they are as engaging as possible.
Track letter formation: Keep a note of how well students are able to form the different letters that you have introduced. Remember to work on lower-case letters first.
Track letter sounds (graphemes): As you complete a set of letter sounds, track students' knowledge of these by getting them to identify them in isolation (and not always in the same order).
Track blending: Use decodable words containing the phonemes you have already learnt to track how well students are able to blend these sounds together to read words. Start with the easier CVC words and work your way up to more complex words with different phonological features.
Track segmenting: Say words aloud and ask students to break the words down into their component sounds. This is a key skill for students to be able to write.
Track tricky/sight words: Non-decodable words also need to be worked on so that students are able to recognise them. Test students on these on a regular basis to check they are keeping up with those that you have introduced in class.
Synthetic phonics is not something that can be learnt and implemented overnight – you have to learn it yourself so that you are able to teach it and identify where students are going wrong and how to overcome these issues. This is not to say that you shouldn’t introduce it in your lessons. The more you practise it with students, the more confident you will get when teaching it and importantly the better prepared students will be when it comes to reading and writing.
If you would like some more ideas on some synthetic phonics activities to use in class, have a look at this blog post: https://london-school-online.com/en/article/synthetic-phonics-activities
If you want to read more about how to work on phonics with teens and adults, check out this blog post: https://london-school-online.com/en/article/phonics-for-teens-and-adults
[1] https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/phonics
