Literacy tools for planet earth

Introduction

The SynPhony Literacy program is a comprehensive, web-based tool designed to support the teaching of reading skills using the Synthetic Phonics approach. It offers a wide range of features that make it an invaluable resource for teachers, educational assistants, tutors, and language developers around the world. The code that drives SynPhony is language agnostic and can match the words and texts of any alphabetically written language to the reading ability of any student. SynPhony is data-driven, meaning that it finds material that a student can or should be able to read depending on criteria you control. It offers a teaching sequence that follows a “productivity” principle—finding those letters (or spelling patterns) that generate the most number of new words at every stage. This results in a rapid increase of readable text that can be decoded by the student. However, you are not forced to follow this sequence, you can introduce any letter at any time or even follow an existing curriculum’s teaching sequence. SynPhony doesn’t tell you what to do; it provides you with material that you can use for teaching someone who is learning to read in a systematic, explicit, sequential and cumulative way.

Access SynPhony for English here:

SynPhony for English for desktops or laptop screens.

SynPhony for English for smaller screens.

A Quick Start Guide

Step 1

On the Home Page start with the Word Lists page.

Step 2

If the “Letters” section is not open on the left hand side, click on the heading to open the “Letters” section. Click on the letters “s”, “i”, and “t”.

Now click a few more letters and notice that the program displays words that are composed of only those letters you have selected. You can continue clicking letters, either in the order as they appear in the “Letters” section, or you can click on them in any order you desire or need. SynPhony always will try to find words that are composed only of those letters that you have selected.

You can change how SynPhony searches for words by modifying the option in the Search Mode section.

• Search Mode 1 is the target letter mode. It is less useful for teaching literacy skills because, while it lists all the words that contain an instance of the focus letter, all other letters are also allowed, meaning that they can contain spelling patterns which the student has not been taught yet. It is useful for finding a lot of words that contain one specific spelling pattern.
• Search Mode 2 creates the Cumulative Word List. It only displays words that consist of the spelling patterns that have been selected. This list represents the words a student should be able to decode at the current level if they have been taught how to read (sound out) all of the selected letters.
• Search Mode 3 creates the Focussed Word List. In this list every word contains an instance of the letter(s) which is the focus of the current lesson. All other spelling patterns in the words also fall within the range of selected letters. This mode finds the signal (what you want to teach) and removes all the noise (letters and spelling patterns you haven’t taught yet).

You can also follow an existing curriculum’s sequence if you want. Click on the header labeled “Follow a Curriculum” and select a curriculum to follow, then select Lesson from the drop down option.

Play a game with the current lesson’s vocabulary!

To access the games click on the playing block with the letter “a” in the Title Bar at the top of the page.

Most of the games or activities always use the current lesson’s vocabulary for its activity. This gives the student opportunity to practice the words that they have just learned in a more enjoyable context. It extends the lesson’s impact by providing materials that engage the student at their current skill level.

Click on the button “Spiral Board” to see your first game. You can print it out and use a dice and game pieces to play.

Now explore what else SynPhony offers!

Key Features

1. Help: Help is available for many pages and activities by clicking on the .

2. Dynamic Word Matching: SynPhony dynamically matches words and texts to the reading ability of any student, ensuring that the material is appropriate for their current level. Create word lists that contain only the letters (phonograms) you select, control for syllable length, and sort by the length of a word, frequency of occurrence, or alphabetically.

3. Decodable Texts: The program helps you find readable texts that are the most appropriate for the reading level of your students. This ensures that students are always working with material they can decode.

4. Literacy Activities: SynPhony makes it easy to create an unlimited number of word search puzzles, games, and more than 20 other literacy activities using the letters or vocabulary from each lesson. These activities extends the lesson’s impact by providing materials that engage the student at their current skill level.

5. Track a Student: SynPhony offers the ability to track individual student progress (or groups) and monitor their development over time. Switching between students (or groups) is quick and easy.

6. Story Checking Tool: Compose your own sentences or stories (or paste them from another source) and check their readability based on the selected letters. The tool highlights words that are not decodable at the current level.

7. Nonsense Words: The program can generate nonsense words to help students practice phonics and decoding skills.

8. My Library: This feature allows you to compile and store various content generated by SynPhony, such as word lists, readable texts, and literacy activities such as word search puzzles. You can print these pages or save them as PDF documents using your browser’s print options.

9. Assessments: The program includes various assessment tools to evaluate students’ reading abilities and track their progress.

10. Settings: You can customize various settings within the program to suit your specific needs and preferences. The program automatically remembers your selections and uses them when you revisit any activity saving you even more time and effort.

AI-generated texts that are decodable for every reading level

One of the standout features of the SynPhony Literacy Program is its ability to generate AI-created sentences and stories that are tailored to any given reading level. This ensures that students are engaged with content that is not only suitable for their current skills but also progressively challenges them as they improve.

You can access the AI-generated sentences from the Word Lists page. In the Toolbar at the top of the page, click on the “AI Sentences” button and the program will bring up a new dialog box. Here you can customize the settings which generate sentences that contain words from the focus letters of the current lesson.

The AI-generated sentences will appear above the list of words in the lesson area of the main page. SynPhony marks up the sentences according to the decodability of the words in the sentence. Sight words are indicated with underlines and words that are not decodable are indicated with a background colour to help you see which words are decodable for this particular student and which are not. This allows you, the teacher, to see the text through the eyes of the student.

Why This Matters

• Personalized Learning: Every student is unique, and SynPhony’s AI-generated content means you can provide personalized reading material that matches each student’s reading skills and profile.

• Engaging Content: The stories and sentences generated by SynPhony are not only decodable but also interesting, making reading a fun and rewarding experience for students.

• Continuous Progress: As students’ reading abilities grow, SynPhony adjusts the complexity of the content, ensuring continuous progress and development.

By leveraging AI technology, SynPhony is joining the transformation of literacy education, making it more effective as well as enjoyable for students with reading difficulties.

Testimonials

• “SynPhony can save you hours and hours of time trying to find just the right words for each lesson. It’s just amazing what it can do!”
  — Mavis Price, Literacy Co-ordinator of SIL PNG

• “SynPhony is a God-send. With this, we can do just what we want.”
  — Bob Litteral, Linguist

• “It takes away the painstaking search to try to find the most frequent and most productive phonograms in the language.”
  — Yohana Hynum, Literacy Teacher