Advertisement Could you read the word âintravenousâ when you were in grade 3? Did you know the superlative suffix for âprettyâ? Itâs Wednesday morning at Chelsea Primary, a state school in Melbourneâs south-eastern sandbelt, and these questions are being put at rapid pace to a composite class of grades 3 and 4 students. Students at Chelsea Primary School learn to read using synthetic phonics. Credit:Simon Schluter The children sit in rows, engaged in a half-hour game of call and response with their teacher that is part reading exercise, part endurance test. Words are broken down into root components â âruptâ, for example â then made whole by adding prefixes and suffixes: âerupt, interrupt, corrupt, ruptureâ. The students chant together as the teacher points at each word on a white screen.