Structured Synthetic Phonics (SSP)

Structured Synthetic Phonics (SSP) is an evidence-based method teaching reading and spelling. It explicitly and systematically teaches the relationships between phonemes (the individual speech sounds in spoken words) and graphemes (the letters and letter combinations that represent those sounds). Children learn to read by converting graphemes into phonemes and blending those phonemes together to form words, and they learn to spell by segmenting spoken words into phonemes and representing each phoneme with a grapheme.

The approach is supported by decades of reading research and by major national reviews of literacy teaching, including the Australian National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy (2005) and the Rose Review in England (2006), both of which recommend systematic, explicit phonics instruction as the most effective way to establish early word reading.

Principles

Synthetic. Reading proceeds from part to whole. Children convert each grapheme to its phoneme and then blend, or synthesise, the phonemes to read the whole word. Spelling works in the reverse direction, from whole to part.

Structured and systematic. Correspondences are introduced in a planned scope and sequence, moving from simpler to more complex, so that instruction is cumulative and children can always read words using only what they have already been taught.

Explicit. The teacher directly teaches each correspondence rather than expecting children to infer it from exposure to text.

Practical example

An early lesson set might introduce the graphemes s, a, t, p, i and n. Once children can produce the matching phoneme for each, they can blend them to read words such as sat, pin and tip, and segment those same words to spell them. Because every grapheme in these words has already been taught, children read them by decoding rather than by guessing.

Frequently asked questions

Q: Why does the sequence need to be systematic?
A: A planned scope and sequence introduces correspondences in a logical, cumulative order. This means there are no gaps, children only meet words they have the knowledge to decode, and each new step builds directly on what came before.

Q:What is the difference between explicit and implicit instruction?
A: Explicit instruction directly teaches the correspondence and how to use it. Implicit approaches expect children to work out the correspondences for themselves from the words they encounter. Explicit teaching is more reliable, particularly for children who find reading difficult.

Q: How are high frequency words handled?
A: High frequency words are taught in line with the scope and sequence. Many are fully decodable using taught correspondences. For words that contain a correspondence not yet introduced, teaching draws attention to the regular parts and to the specific unusual part, rather than treating the whole word as something to memorise by sight. Research on orthographic mapping shows that even so-called irregular words are learned by connecting their sounds to their letters, not through visual memorisation alone.