I wish reading reformers would stop clamoring (as did the US National Reading Panel) for “systematic” phonics, and instead, call consistently for “synthetic” phonics (as did England’s national “Rose Report”). [1/5]

The reason? “Analytic” phonics can be systematic. Since analytic phonics is fully compatible with Balanced Literacy, a call for “systematic” phonics ends up being nothing more than a call for the status quo. [2/5]

Synthetic phonics is always systematic and it’s NOT compatible with Balanced Literacy. Balanced Literacy uses sight words and guessing - synthetic phonics uses neither. [3/5]

Balanced Literacy does not respect that young learner’s need for logic and understanding – synthetic phonics does. BL takes 4-5 years to cover the alphabetic code – synthetic phonics takes a year or two. [4/5]

Balanced Literacy (over)uses “discovery” learning – synthetic phonics uses explicit teaching. To learn more about the power of Synthetic Phonics, see here: [5/5] https://www.parkerphonics.com/post/synthetic-phonics-what-it-is-and-what-it-ain-t