Mississippi Foundations of Reading Practice Test

Which phonics approach emphasizes learning sounds represented by letters and blending them to pronounce words?

1. whole language

2. synthetic phonics

3. word families

4. suprasegmental

The correct answer is: synthetic phonics

The phonics approach that emphasizes learning the sounds represented by letters and blending them to pronounce words is synthetic phonics. This method focuses on the systematic instruction of phonemes (the individual sounds in words) and graphemes (the letters or groups of letters that represent those sounds). Students are taught to decode words by synthesizing the sounds associated with each letter or letter combination, allowing them to blend these sounds together to read unfamiliar words. Synthetic phonics is highly effective for developing early reading skills, as it provides a strong foundation in the relationship between letters and sounds. This contrasts with methods like whole language, which promotes reading through context and whole texts rather than through explicit phonics instruction. Word families might group words based on similar phonetic endings, but they do not focus on individual sound-letter relationships for decoding. Suprasegmental refers to features of speech that extend beyond individual sounds, such as intonation and stress, and is not directly related to the blending of sounds for reading.