As parents, we all know we should give our kids a head-start or an early preparation to get them ready to learn how to read, especially our pre schooler. So in this blog post, we will share what we know so you can teach pre schooler phonics at home the fun and easy way. So let’s started with the step-by-step sequential phonics approach.
What Exactly Does Phonics Mean?
Phonics is the method of teaching reading and writing through clear instruction of the code between speech sounds and written symbols.
The English alphabet letters are written symbols that represent speech sounds. It has been agreed that a certain letter or combination of letters represents a single sound in our spoken language.
Individual speech sounds are called phonemes and the written symbols that represent those sounds are called phonograms, sometimes they are referred to as graphemes. A phonogram can be a single letter or a combination of letters. For example, when we say the word “dog” and then write it on paper, the speech sound /d/ is represented by the letter “d”, the speech sound /o/ is represented by the letter “o” and the speech sound /g/ is represented by the letter “g”. We then read the word “dog” since we know the sound that each letter represents!
However, there are more than just the phonemes that correspond to the 26 alphabet letters. There are about 44 unique speech sounds, in fact 70 phonograms in the English language, and some of them have multiple spellings! For example, the long ‘a’ vowel sound can be spelled as ‘a’ (area or away) and also in blends as ‘ai’ (grain), ae (make), ay (day), or ea (treat) and many more.
The progression order is such. We first start with basic phonics, that is, we’ll first focus our sound-letter association through teaching the alphabet letters that represent the short vowel sounds and hard consonant sounds. Then we’ll add on the other common phonograms such as ai, sh, ee, ch, ou, and so on.
In another blog, we’ll be focusing on the various spellings of the 44 unique speech sounds.
Why Is Phonics Important?
It’s important for your preschooler to learn phonics for two main reasons:
He or she will be able to decode words never seen before.
He or she will know which letters to use when writing words.
One good way to ascertain your kid’s knowledge of phonics is to invite him or her to write or read nonsense words such as bax, huj, pleck, and stront. Also, most words on the high-frequency word lists or sight words lists can actually be sounded out easily by children who have knowledge of the phonetic code and over time, this will help your child learn how to spell more easily and also, not have to memorize long lists of words.
Step-by-step Approach to Teaching Your Preschooler Phonics at Home
STEP 1: Develop Phonemic Awareness
The first step to teaching phonics is to play beginning sounds games when your child is around two to three years old. This is to help your preschooler develop phonemic awareness. Phonemic awareness activities involve no letter symbols! The focus is just to focus on only the individual speech sounds (phonemes) in spoken words. That will prepare your child to understand that letters are symbols that represent speech sounds. It’s important not to skip this step as phonemic awareness builds the foundation to learning how to read
before they move to the basics of learning phonics.
STEP 2: Connecting Speech Sounds to Letter Symbols
The second step to teaching phonics is to learn the letter names and their associated sounds. With phonemic awareness, the letter symbols will now have meaning for your child. He can start learning how to identify the letter symbols and the beginning sounds of spoken words. You can use flashcards or sand letters to exercise auditory learning, visual learning, and sensory memory of your child for better retention.
STEP 3: Use the Knowledge of Phonics to Build Words
The third step to teaching phonics is to show your child how to arrange speech sounds (represented by letter symbols) in a certain order to make words. Here using moveable alphabets will prove useful as it allows your child to use his existing phonics knowledge to communicate ideas without any pressure to read what they have written. This is the first step to learning encoding skills. Moveable alphabets would again be a useful tool to help children build words before they have mastered their pencil grip. Less stress is placed on them as to writing out letters, even tracing out the letters as frustration might set in and some kids might find writing tiring or bothersome. Finding alphabet letters and ordering them might also seem more like a game than the hard work of writing out.
STEP 4: Use the Knowledge of Phonics to Decode Words
The first three steps are indirect preparation for reading. It has been through interactive play and game-like activities without any worksheets. We have just improvised and used moveable alphabets and sandpaper letters. We can now move on to more complex things like decoding unknown words.
You can use the analogy-based approach to teach your child the patterns of words with similar sounds and spellings.
STEP 5: Instil a love for reading
You should by now encourage your child to work on some sight words to boost reading fluency and then introduce decodable readers that require knowledge of basic and advanced phonics.
Some recommendations of decodable readers
1) Phonics Readers – by sets – These short readers are designed for children learning to read and write using the Letterland system. They are fully decodable and contain a few ‘Tricky Words’. As children progress through these readers, new letter sounds and Tricky words are added and previous learning is revised.
2) The Jolly Phonics Little Word Books provide a gradual and structured start for children who are just learning to read. It gives children the opportunity to apply their letter sound knowledge. These readers cover the 42 letter sounds across 14 books.
3) Paw patrol Phonics Book Set – This Step into Reading boxed set includes 12 full-color phonics readers featuring the pups of Nickelodeon’s PAW Patrol! Each book features a specific phonics concept that will give boys and girls ages 3 to 7 the tools they need to begin reading on their own.
At this point, it is important to motivate your preschooler to read independently. You can start by introducing books that are simple to read and understand. When he gets used to reading on his own, you can slowly increase the difficulty level. With these steps, your kid will be able to confidently read and write words in no time! All that is required from you is a little patience and some fun phonics activities for kids.
Conclusion
- Phonics is really the approach to take. Research supports using phonics over the ‘whole language’ approach that schools may tend to use.
- A summary of the four steps in the learning sequence from pre-reading to early reading the phonics way:
- Develop phonemic awareness.
- Connect speech sounds and letter symbols using sandpaper letters to learn the phonetic code.
- Use existing phonics knowledge to build words using moveable alphabets.
- Use existing phonics knowledge to decode words in order to read words and then sentences.
It’s important to understand the full picture so that you’ll be able to decide very quickly how to support your young learner in his reading and writing journey.
Here in ‘Seriously Addictive English’ (S.A.E.) @ HOUGANG, we use the structured phonics approach and an integrated literacy skills curriculum to help children read fluently and write confidently. This structured phonics approach simplifies English language into 44 sounds that can help the early learner to read and write. Our curriculum is customized for each child according to their reading and comprehension levels while we incorporate a variety of activities and text types to inculcate avid reading.
Check out our carefully structured modules which cover motor skills for the little ones, phonics, reading comprehension, spelling, vocabulary, grammar, punctuation, structuring text, planning and independent writing. Learn more about our Seriously Addictive English (Hougang Branch).