Syllabic Method: Characteristics Of This Literacy Technique
The syllabic method of reading and writing It is one of the most popular methodologies when teaching reading and writing.
This method was developed by the German pedagogues Friedrich Gedike and Samiel Heinicke, and consists of teaching reading by combining vowels and consonants to form syllables. Progressively, greater difficulty is incorporated, reaching the final levels of forming words and phrases with meaning. Let’s see what its characteristics are and how it is used.
The syllabic method is a synthetic method, that is, it starts from small units and little by little addresses more complex units. Uses syllables as the basic individual units going beyond the individual letter sounds.
When we speak, we do not pronounce the sounds of each letter in isolation. We do it by pronouncing syllabicly, that is, emitting combinations of two or more sounds. That is why this method starts from the syllable as the unit of literacy learning, given that it is the smallest pronounceable unit.
While other reading teaching systems focus in isolation either on the spelling (how the letter is written), or only on the phoneme (its pronunciation), the syllabic method allows you to combine these two aspects, teaching how to pronounce syllables and little by little teaching how to use them to form words and phrases
The syllabic method allows students to be taught to read following a process in which complexity increases. First, children are familiarized with the letters and their sounds Once they have learned how each of the letters sounds, they proceed to teach sound combinations.
It starts with the vowels, and images and words can be incorporated to facilitate learning. Once this point is reached, they are taught syllables made up of combinations of a consonant followed by a vowel (e.g., ma, me, mi, mo, and mu). Once they have learned these combinations, the difficulty is increased by teaching syllables that are more difficult to pronounce, with two consonants (e.g., bra, bre, bri, bro and bru). When students have mastered these two types of syllables, those with an inverse structure are taught, that is, a vowel followed by a consonant (e.g., ar, er, ir, or and ur).
Finally, the most difficult syllables are taught, those in which there are diphthongs (e.g., gua, güe…), triphthongs (meow), four letters (e.g., pres) and mixed syllables.
Teaching the syllabic method It can be done using books with various types of syllables, which are called syllabaries
Advantages of this educational method
The syllabic method has a series of advantages that led it to be one of the most popular methods when teaching reading and writing:
1. Skip spelling each letter separately
Gives importance to the pronunciation of syllables.
2. Syllables are sound units
This allows the acquisition of reading and writing in an agile and rapid way since they can be memorized more easily.
3. It can be taught in a logical and organized way
This It is done by presenting exercises with increasingly complex syllables and following a pre-established hierarchy.
4. It is very useful in certain languages
The syllabic method It is very effective when it comes to teaching how to write and read languages such as Spanish or Finnish since they are very phonetic (transparent languages) and are written as they sound.
5. Enhances autonomy in boys and girls
Being a simple method of learning, it also allows it to be taught in an easy way, encouraging the students themselves to help others learn to read and write.
6. It is not very expensive
Does not require too many resources to apply being a relatively economical method to apply in the classroom.
Disadvantages
Although it has been shown to be very effective in teaching reading and writing, the syllabic method has a series of disadvantages, which may make other methods more appropriate depending on the situation:
1. It can generate impatience
By starting from the pronunciation of the simplest vowels and syllables, and little by little adding complexity, it may be the case that students do not see it necessary to go through so many steps to learn to read and write.
2. It is based on meaningless units
The syllable, as a unit, generally has no meaning by itself.
3. It can get monotonous
Some children do not like the syllabic method, since involves having to learn the syllables in a mechanical and repetitive way which can become a boring process.
4. It can confuse with the objective to be achieved
As it is mechanical learning, the child can focus only on how to read and write the syllables correctly, and may not understand the text as a whole and may have difficulties in understanding it.
Syllabing can occur, which is the phenomenon in which children read each of the syllables that make up words separately instead of reading the word as a whole.
6. In some languages it costs more
It is not the most appropriate method for learning languages that are read differently than how they are written such as English or French (opaque languages).
Other methods
Although the syllabic method has been useful for transparent languages such as Spanish, there are other methods that have been used throughout the history of teaching with the aim of perfecting reading and writing skills.
1. Literal method
The student begins to learn the vowels and then moves on to the consonants, one by one Learn to call each of the letters by their name (“pe”, “ene”, “cu”…). This is a problem, since it ignores how the letters in the word sound and the rules that govern their phonology.
2. Phonic method
The sound of each letter is taught Each sound is usually accompanied by an image that is recognizable to the child, allowing it to be assimilated more easily (e.g., the sound /s/ with the image of a snake).
This method can be carried out gradually and makes it easier for the child to get used to any new sound. However, since there are letters that are pronounced the same, confusion can occur (e.g., “ce” with “zeta” and “ka”).
3. Global method
Unlike the syllabic method, in this method It starts from the word or phrase and progressively moves towards its elements: syllables, letters and sounds That is, it goes in the opposite direction.
First, children learn words as a whole, usually accompanied by images that represent them, and little by little they become aware of the phonemes and spellings that make them up.
