Analytical Phonics
Introduction to Analytical Phonics
Analytical Phonics uses the analysis of word forms to structure phonic instruction.
The letter groupings in words have patterns and those patterns will often (although not always) be linked to a particular pattern of phonemes. So the principal is that if a child knows /goat/, /boat/ and /float/, then the word /moat/ will be easy to read, even if it is the first time that it has been seen.
It makes logical sense and like most reading systems, it does work to a degree.
Problems with Analytical Phonics
Like with almost any reading system, around 50% of the class will usually pick up literacy fine. However, analytical phonics really struggles with the rest of the class. There are a number of reasons why:
- While there are 190 phoneme:grapheme relationships and that is already complex enough, there are around 1400 definable letter patterns for segments of words. And they are not consistent at all. So it is natural for a child to get confused.
- Learning letter patterns is exceptionally boring
- The child is being distanced from the underlying phonemic structure of the word and guided back towards sight memorisation of whole words
Analytical Phonics has always achieved disappointing results in mainstream education and has therefore left open the door for the repeated rise of real books.
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