What is phonics?

Many parents of little readers often ask the question “what is phonics?” They may ask if their child needs to know phonics in order to learn to read, or how old their child has to be learn phonics. I hope to answer a few of those questions today.

Phonics is a method in which a student learns that letters make different sounds, and combonations of letters make different sounds. So, for instance, a child learns that the b says “buh”, or the letters ‘i-n-g’ say ‘ing’.

In school, children usually learn phonics from kindergarten through second grade. At first they may learn the individual letters of the alphabet: the vowel sounds and the consonant sounds. Next they will learn the blends and diagraphs. For instance the sounds made when you blend the letters “bl” or “cr”. Then students will learn different word endings like ‘ing’ and ‘ed’ or ‘tion’.

At Sight and Sound Reading, we teach phonics in a number of ways. First, we have our sight word learn to read for free program. (This is not phonics), but -within the videos where we teach the children to read, we also are teaching phonics to the children. The children learn phonics in context -so, for instance when they learn to read the word ‘good’, they are taught that good begins with the letter ‘g’ and makes the ‘g’ sound.

We also teach phonics through our free phonics videos. There are also worksheets that go along with the program too. Mrs. Karle explicitly teaches phonics by sounding out words for each of the vowels. She teaches slowly and deliberately and repeats herself frequently. These vidoes are wonderful for struggling readers, especially those children who struggle with phonics.

Lastly we teach phonics through fun free videos and free worksheets. Each Friday we offer a free phonics worksheet for students. We also offer silly phonics videos every so often to help children remember the phonics sounds.

If you like this post, you will like

Kindergarten Teaching Ideas