Synthetic phonics instruction helps students to do what?

Synthetic phonics instruction is a method that emphasizes the relationship between letters and sounds, focusing on teaching students the individual sounds associated with each letter or letter combination. This approach enables students to decode words by sounding out each letter in sequence and blending these sounds together to form words.

By attending to each letter and its corresponding sound, students build a strong foundation in phonemic awareness, which is essential for reading proficiency. This strategy empowers learners, particularly those with dyslexia, to approach unfamiliar words with confidence, improving their overall reading skills.

The other options involve different reading strategies that do not align with the explicit focus of synthetic phonics. For instance, learning vocabulary through context relies more on understanding meaning in situ rather than isolating sounds and letters. Recognizing whole words by sight skips the foundational decoding process, and using pictures is a strategy that relies on visual cues rather than phonetic understanding.