How do you teach phonics

Children learn a lot through play — but these days, reading skills are also taught systematically, from the earliest days in nursery or reception class right through their first years in primary school. It can be a bit of a puzzle to work out how best to support your child through the early stages of reading, especially since teaching methods may have changed quite a bit since you were at school! Phoneme : the sound a letter or group of letters make — e. Sounding out : using your phonic knowledge to help you say each sound within a word, e.

Blending : running the sounds in the word together to read the whole word, e. Children are taught to recognise these words on sight — a few of these words are introduced and learnt at a time.

Most schools in the UK now teach reading through phonics. The reason phonics is so widely used is that research shows it works! In pre-school or nursery, before they even start learning letter names and sounds, children begin developing their listening skills so that they are tuned into the different sounds in words.

They practise reading increasingly complex words. By the time they finish their first year, most children will be well on the way to reading pretty much any familiar word in English!

In their second year, children develop their skills still further, practising using phonics to read and spell words that are less familiar and more challenging. Of course, while all this is going on, children are also learning to understand and enjoy what they read! From nursery and beyond, teachers share wonderful stories and non-fiction books with children and encourage them to think about, talk about and enjoy their reading.

These sections below will offer advice and guidance on what children typically learn in each year of school, with some ideas for helping them if they get stuck. Remember the aim of phonics is to get your child reading as quickly and easily as possible so that they are free to read whatever they like!

Aim to stop before your child gets bored! Ten minutes is often long enough. Stories and high-quality non-fiction are important — and so is the cuddly quiet time you spend together sharing them!

This is often very reassuring and it can be a great source of new ideas for supporting your child! Children will be using songs, nursery rhymes and play to discover lots of sounds and get used to hearing and repeating them. This stage is often called Phase 1 of phonics. What sound does a dog make? Can they copy a sound you make, and tell you what the animal is?

Or if they love trucks, cars and diggers, encourage them to make the appropriate noises when they are playing. Can your child tell you what made the sound? Can they copy it? Letters and Sounds are broken up into five Phases. Phase 1 is the nursery stage, where children learn to listen out for sounds and patterns and copy them. Children will begin to learn more complex spelling rules such as prefixes, suffixes and silent letters.

They should continue to practise reading on a daily basis to develop speed, fluency and comprehension. Good luck! With plenty of practice and praise, your child should be reading in no time.

In this blog, Laura sets out five ways to help your child prepare for the 7 Plus or 8 Plus school entrance exam and interview. Using these five activities as part of a long-term strategy will build your child's confidence in speaking, reading and writing and ensure their skills and personality shines through on the day. Laura March, Rosie qualified as a teacher in Primary education in , and now works as a tutor with Owl Tutors. Your email address will not be published. May 7th, Add to enquiry Complete enquiry.

Look for everyday opportunities to break a short word start with words with just two or three sounds, for example, hat, dog, car into its individual sounds for your child to zip back together or blend orally. Do you have a h-a-t? What do we need to put on? Practice with a Phonics book set. Peppa Pig Phonics , for example, provides parents ample opportunities to sound out short words and point out the differences between short and long vowels , while your child is sure to delight in the colorful illiustrations and silly antics of Peppa and her friends.

Parents Store Cart. School Success. The Scholastic Store. Book Clubs. An approach to the teaching of reading in which phonics forms one part of a whole language programme. Embedded phonics differs from other methods in that the instruction is always in the context of literature rather than in separate lessons, and the skills to be taught are identified opportunistically rather than systematically.

How is phonics taught? Synthetic phonics The most widely used approach associated with the teaching of reading in which phonemes sounds associated with particular graphemes letters are pronounced in isolation and blended together synthesised. Analytical phonics A popular approach in Scotland, this method is associated with the teaching of reading in which the phonemes associated with particular graphemes are not pronounced in isolation.