Getting Ahead in Phonics

Almost all schools teach reading using a phonics first approach. Some of you will argue that not all children learn to read using phonics, and that of course is true. Some children learn to read by sight and struggle to hear the phonics sounds. But how can you help your child to have the best shot at succeeding with phonics?

Appeal to your child’s senses

Pre-school children need to see the lowercase letters of the alphabet as much as possible. Flash cards can get very boring very quickly but there are plenty more options out there: foam letters for the bath, alphabet jigsaws, magnetic letters, wooden letters to draw around, letters that you have drawn in trays of glitter or foam. Our favourite game with our letters was hiding them around the garden or house and searching for them. It was active, lots of fun and gave plenty of opportunity to reinforce the letter sounds.

Develop their listening skills

Later, children will need to hear how letter sounds blend together and listening is a basic skill that will help with that. It’s never actually silent- especially in our house. When you really listen there is always some noise: the hum of the washing machine, the dog snoring, the bin lorry rumbling by. We liked to turn listening into a game by hiding a toy, making a noise with it and guessing which toy it was. At my school’s nursery, a favourite activity is a sound walk. The children head off around the school with clip boards and draw pictures of sounds that they can hear.

Initial letter sounds

Help your child to hear what sound a word begins with. “Listen, d d d daddy.” We then pretended that Daddy’s favourite letter was ‘d’ and he always wanted that letter in our alphabet jigsaw. Similarly, my favourite letter was ‘m’ and nanny’s ‘n’. Another way to do this is to have a collection of objects on a tray or in a box and ask your child to find items beginning with different letter sounds. A few weeks ago I found a long forgotten packet of cotton wool with a ‘c’ label stuck on - we liked labelling things!

Blending
Before children can read they need to be able to hear a word by blending it. For instance, when looking at a book together you might encourage your child to search for things in the picture. Add in phonics by saying: “Where is the c-a-t?” “Touch the ch-i-ck.”

Excellent nurseries do this as part of their everyday practice. “Children, go and get your c-oa-t-s please.” By doing this a couple of times daily children quickly pick up this skill which is a major help when they start to sound out letters    in simple words.

You may have guessed by now that I am a massive advocate of phonics. I have seen countless children learn to read with it. It is truly a thing of beauty when children have the ‘light bulb’ moment and realise that by sounding out the letters in a word they can read it. It’s the best bit of my job as a teacher.