Alphablocks
Season 4, Episode 8: "Mine" (8 minutes)
UK: Blue Zoo
CBeebies, Wednesday 22 November, 14:25
As I understand it, synthetic phonics is a contentious subject. It's the current government-approved method of learning to read and write, and all primary schools are now required to teach it.
In short: teacher shows child a grapheme (single letter, or pair of letters) and says the phoneme (single sound) that it represents. Child memorizes about 40 of these grapheme-phoneme pairs. When given a written word, child breaks it down into graphemes, and says the related phonemes, in order to read the word. When teacher dictates a word, child breaks it down into phonemes, and writes the related graphemes, in order to spell the word.
The obvious flaw in this method is that English spelling is not very phonetic. There are words that are spelled the same but pronounced differently; there are words that are pronounced the same but spelled differently; and there is a huge number of words with strange, irregular spellings. Andrew Davis writing for The Guardian argues that synthetic phonics completely ignores the meaning or context of words, ignores differences in regional accents, and even teaches children to read and write completely made-up words. And from what some secondary-school teachers have told me, the method has resulted in a large number of teenagers who simply can't spell.
What's this got to do with anything?
Nevertheless, synthetic phonics is part of the Key Stage 1 National Curriculum, and Alphablocks is specially designed to work alongside the curriculum. In fact, it's probably the most explicitly educational and curriculum-related programme I have seen on CBeebies.
The characters are brightly coloured squares with faces, arms and legs, and each has a large transparent "forehead" containing a letter of the alphabet. Immediately I noted a clever device in the dialogue, by which each character uses a lot of words beginning with his or her letter. For example, G greets people with "good morning," while H says "hello."
The format seems to be that each episode focuses on a particular phoneme, and presents the different graphemes that can produce that sound. The phoneme for this particular episode was "ai".
Thin on plot, high on content
The episode has the barest minimum of a plot, which I presume is so that the majority of the running time can be dedicated to the educational content. The letter I invites E, G, and H to a party, but when they reply "I will come!" she marches off in a huff because I is her name and "only I can say I!"
I sings a song about how she doesn't need any friends. The letter on her forehead changes to a capital letter, and she repeatedly sings "I, I, I," (representing that the word "I" sounds like "ai").
However, she is then joined by G and H, and they merge together (as in the image above), and they continue to sing "I, I, I," showing that "IGH" also makes the "ai" sound.
As the song continues, other letters appear, spelling words such as "right" and "bright". The technique of synthetic phonics is incorporated right into the song, with each character or group saying their phoneme. For example,
We're IGH, and everything will be b - r - ai - t... BRIGHT!
With IGH, you're going to see the l - ai - t... LIGHT!
The process then repeats, using IE instead of IGH, spelling words such as "pie" and "lie"
And once more, using Magic E, spelling words such as "like" and "shine" (a sort of rainbow runs between I and Magic E to show that they are connected).
At the end, I realizes that she's not the only one who can say the "ai" sound, and tells the others that "you can all be my friends".
But is it entertaining?
I realize that it's an incredibly difficult job to try and make the early stages of reading and writing fun, but I do wonder whether Alphablocks would hold a child's interest. It really is a good attempt at supplementing the curriculum outside of the school environment, but I don't know if a child would actually choose to watch it, especially when it has to compete with an iPad. My own opinion is that there needs to be more of a plot, in order to make the show more entertaining. But I suppose this would involve making the episodes longer and therefore more expensive.
Maybe it's more suited to be shown in a classroom, where the children have less distraction.
Bad manners
A final note regarding social learning: I noted that the letter I never apologises for being selfish and rude. The others just automatically reassure her that they like her and that they are friends. Not really a good example.
Available to watch online until 22 December 2017
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