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What is Phonics?

If you are a parent of young child then you already might have heard this word a lot of times and if you are wondering what it actually is then this post will help you know that in more detail.

Phonics is like the backbone of reading and writing so let’s deep dive into this and know why is it so important for beginner readers.

What is Phonics ?

Phonics is a method to teach reading and writing with letter sounds and to put together these sounds together to read & write a word.

Every letter in English language is associated with it’s own letter sound and in phonics we teach these sounds and connect them to it’s letter.

Fore example – letter ‘c’ makes the /c/ sounds , letter ‘a’ makes the /a/ sound and letter ‘t’ makes the sounds and together you read the word – ‘cat’.

Why is it Important ?

To be precisely clear you cannot read or write a word without learning phonics because it cannot be done without knowing the sound a letter makes.

The only way to learn to read and write without knowing phonics is to memorize it and we know that’s not going to work on long run .

To be an expert reader our kids should be able to decode words by sounding them out and which off course need a very strong phonics understanding and as they become more proficient with phonics they can read more fluently without having to memorize anything.

How to teach Phonics ?

Now comes the most important ‘How do we teach Phonics’ to our kids . I feel something that is so important should be in the right way from the beginning.

Trying something new every time can confuse our kids and make it hard fr them to learn. Below are few techniques that we have done in the past and you can use it too to teach your kids –

  1. Start with 2-3 letters at a time so that is easy for kids to learn.
  2. Practice the sounds in multiple ways through different hands-on activities.
  3. Sounds out loud with your kids in fun ways.
  4. Repeat practicing the same letters until they have mastered these sounds.
  5. Once they have learned all the sounds you can move to blending them together.