Comprehensive-Reading

Phonics

Even from the crib, children begin to comprehend phonemic awareness. That is the understanding that words are made up of sounds which can be assembled in different ways to make different words. As your child grows they learn sounds by associating that sound with a word. Such as the "B" sound with "Bottle, baby, bug, boot, blankie, bird, etc". As they grow more they learn to distinguish consonants sounds from vowel sounds. As your child's phonemic awareness continues to build they will soon realize that these sounds can be built upon to change words. such as "b + ug = bug, m + ug=mug, c+ at= cat, b + at= bat". This phonemic awareness is the building block on which we can begin teaching phonics to our children.

Without this Phonological awareness to distinguish the difference in sounds a child as they grow may not be able to understand the difference in words that sound alike but are different. Such words might include "boat, float, or coat". Common exercises to develop phonemic awareness include games with rhymed words, games based on recognizing initial consonance, practicing nursery rhymes and playing sound and word games. Teaching phonics and phonemic awareness over lap in your child's development but parents should make sure that their child has a good understanding and phonemic awareness before they actually start teaching phonics.

Phonics is the understanding that letters are combined to make the sounds and also the words. Usually we start off with teaching the alphabet. It is important to make sure you have the proper phonics curriculum so that your child has the necessary pre-phonics skills to be successful with phonics.

Time4Learning has through their online educational system the necessary phonics curriculum to do this for your child.

For Preschool phonics, parents can do a variety of reading activities to enhance a phonics curriculum:

Showing your child the letters of the alphabet,
Spell their name and sound it out to them
Teach them the letters in their name
Encourage your preschooler to pay attention to the sounds in words

and more...

For kindergarten, phonics curriculum should teach letters and their corresponding sounds and by the end of kindergarten, students should know these letters and sounds. Phonic curriculum should use reading activities. Be careful not to push your child too hard. Children all learn at a different pace. Your phonics curriculum should recognize that all children are different, and cater to your child's learning style.

For First Grade, phonics curriculum should help your child identify syllables into words and how to spell. By Second Grade, the phonic curriculum should be teaching your child more advanced methods of identifying syllables, mastering multi-syllabic words and learning to spell as well as decode. As your second grader progress they should start recognizing word roots, prefixes and suffixes.

Another great resource for phonic lessons is from Indiana University. They have created a web page compiled of links and information for phonic lessons. The information on the phonic lessons were assembled from the World Wide Web, ERIC Database, and a variety of other bibliographic resources.

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