Synthetic phonics in Spanish bilingual education: Spelling mistakes analysis

Abstract

Reading and writing in English from early ages is both a need and a must. The search of an effective learning methodology to teach early literacy has made the application of the synthetic phonics method to expand, regardless of the lack of agreement concerning its results. This study is aimed at showing whether this method is effective or not in bilingual educational centres of Madrid (Spain), focussing on the written skills of 640 students, aged 8-9. The errors committed in a 15-frequenly-used-word dictation have been classified according to Corder’s taxonomy. The non-parametric statistic results show that there are differences in the errors made by the students without specific method instruction (less errors) compared to those students with synthetic phonics instruction. However, these differences have lower level of association and do not indicate a relevant direction. Therefore, it could be concluded that synthetic phonics does not seem to guarantee an efficient learning of spelling for the Spanish students. There is a need to adapt the synthetic phonics method for learners from bilingual schools, as well as to investigate the efficiency of other methodologies to teach writing in English at early stages of literacy.