January 24, 2022
January 24, 2022
If your child is learning how to read, or struggling with the process, spending more effort on phonics can make a huge difference. Many parents have probably heard of phonics as a concept, but might be unsure of how it works. So what is phonics in reading and why is it so important in literacy?
Phonics is a method for teaching people of any age how to read and write by breaking a language down into sounds, letters, and groupings of letters. Through phonics, students learn how the sounds made while speaking correlate to their written equivalent. It’s one of the most widely used ways of teaching children to read, so it’s something both parents and teachers should understand.
Here’s how phonics can give your child a boost in the reading department.
Why is phonics important for reading?
The English language is complex, and it’s a hard language to learn. Think of words like ballet, colonel, and island – with so many words that are pronounced nothing like they’re spelled, one of the benefits of phonics is that it breaks words down to their simplest form, which helps prepare kids for tackling harder words later on.
Phonics gives children the fundamental building blocks they need, and is kind of like a secret code that they’ll use to translate the English language from long, scary words into something much more manageable.
What are the benefits of using phonics?
There are so many great reasons to use phonics, but essentially, they make language easier to understand by breaking it into its simplest form. As students learn phonics, they’re able to decipher more and more words and form them into sentences they can understand, which is the key to reading success.
This tool will help just about anyone struggling with reading by giving them more confidence in their abilities, turning the pages of a book from something intimidating into something fun.
How is phonics taught?
Phonics is generally taught through a series of progressive steps, starting with the most basic sounds and then moving onto more complex sounds and word patterns. The beauty of phonics is that you can always move forward or backward, so if a child is struggling, simply go back a step until their reading comprehension begins to improve.
Many kids begin phonics between the ages of 3–5, but the method can be used at any age. Although there are various ways of teaching phonics, here is a basic overview of each step.
1. Start with letter sounds
Phonics begins with the alphabet. Each letter (consonants and vowels) makes a unique sound or sounds. Teachers will work with students to create a correlation between the pronunciation of each letter and its written form.
It’s best to start with the letters that are easiest to learn, which include S, A, T, P, I, N, D, E, M, H, and B. These are considered the simplest to sound out. There are lots of tools that can help with this step, including reading workbooks, fridge magnet letters, and specially designed learning toys.
2. Progress to blending
Next, teachers can start introducing blends of both consonants and vowels. CVC (consonant, vowel, consonant) is the most common blend to start with.
Learning short words like pin, sat, and bin with CVC blends helps students learn how multiple letters come together to form one word.
3. Move to more complex letter patterns
As children master more and more sounds and short words, teachers can progress onto working with more complex sounds known as digraphs. These are combinations of two letters that make one sound (called a phoneme), such as ph, wh, and ng.
Start with some of the more common digraphs, like the above, since children will encounter them often. You can then move onto more complex sounds like trigraphs, which are sounds made from three letters put together, like sch in the words school, scheme, or schnitzel.
4. Regular spelling and pronunciation practice
As with any new skill, practice makes perfect. Over time, children will practice what they’ve learned and move up to harder and harder words. It takes time, but it works!
How can I teach phonics at home?
Phonics isn’t only for the classroom! Because language is all around us, just about anything in life can be an opportunity to see and practice new words.
Parents can foster a lifelong passion for reading by incorporating phonics into daily life. For example, if you’re cooking dinner, you can encourage your child to sound out the word “butter” on the butter’s packaging. Or, if you’re driving, point out road names on highway signs or billboards and help kids work out how to pronounce them.
Another great idea is to make time each day to read to your children. If you read out loud from a picture book, children can follow along, which helps develop a correlation between each word and its pronunciation. Daily reading time also encourages children’s imagination, fosters a love of books, and is a special way for parents and children to spend quality time together.
Of course, children learn by example too, so if you love reading books, the daily newspaper, or your Kindle, your kids will see this and want to emulate it. You can also purchase reading learning aids that make phonics fun, such as games, puzzles, and educational software. It also helps to create a productive learning environment for kids at home.
As parents, it’s easy to take reading for granted, but try to remember that it comes much easier for some children than others. If your child is falling behind in reading, whether due to a learning difficulty or just because they need some extra practice, hiring an online phonics tutor is a great way to give their reading skills a boost, since language is one of the school subjects best adapted to online learning.
Featured image by Artem Podrez on Pexels