How to Teach Reading Through Phonics Instruction

Phonics relies heavily on the natural sounds the letters of the alphabet make when spoken.

There are many approaches to teaching children to read, but phonics is one of the easiest to use. It's a relatively straightforward method, and some children respond to it very well. Some school systems rely on phonics exclusively, and many of them have been very successful. Before choosing to use phonics in your teaching, you should investigate every method thoroughly.

Instructions

1. Teach the children the alphabet. They need a firm grasp of this before they can proceed.

2. Teach the children the sounds the letters make. This is absolutely critical to the phonics teaching method, and you have to make sure the children understand these sounds completely.

3. Start showing the children how different letters can be blended together to make short words, like "cat," "bat," and "mat." Then try showing them longer words with similar sounds, like "splat" and "that."

4. Teach the kids about situations where different letters can combine to make similar sounds, like "red" and "bread."

5. You'll begin to notice that some children are having an easier time than others. Some children will run with the concept and immediately start forming their own words, while others will require more teaching. Encourage the top performers to be creative with their letters, and help the children who are having more difficulty.

6. Get books for the children to read that are written with teaching phonics in mind. These books will feature sentences that stress the sounds made by words and letters, like "The bed was red," or "The bat and the cat sat on the hat."

7. Keep the training times short. Young children can be easily bored by dealing with one subject for too long.

8. Introduce one letter a day until the children have a basic grasp. As they become more knowledgeable, you'll find that they start learning new ideas and letter combinations much more quickly.

9. Most children will be able to read and form sentences after 3 to 6 months of lessons of gradually increasing complexity; some will learn even faster.

References

• Teaching Treasures: Four Main Methods Learning To Read

Resources

• Free Printables For Teachers: Free Phonics Resources