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Phonics is one way to teach children how to read. Using letter-sound associations, it helps children learn to decipher new words. It is not the only way to teach reading but it is the best way. It has proven to be effective when taught systematically.  Yes, that is very important. You want to reap the full benefits of phonics instruction, you need to teach it  systematically.

Not only does phonics teach children how to read, but it also contributes to their spelling and comprehension.  Phonics is most beneficial to those who are just learning to read and children who have trouble reading. The best time to start phonics instruction is when your children are at the kindergarten age.

So, what is the best way to teach phonics?

• Teach children that letters and combination of letters represent different sounds. Teach them how to blend the sounds together to make words. Don’t just teach “c” is /c/, “a’ is /a/ and “t” is /t/. Teach them how when put together, it becomes the word “cat”.
• Use “explicit” instruction rather than embedded, implicit or analogy instruction.
  Here are some examples of direct instruction:
  -  Show the child the letter “b” and tell them that it represents the sound /b/.
  - Teach them how to write it and while they write, have them say the sound /b/.
  - Put a picture of the letter “b” on the wall, and have them throw a ball at it while chanting the sound /b/.
  - Play “sound bingo”.

  Here are examples of non-direct teaching that you should avoid.
  - DON’T show them the letter “b” and tell them that it is called “bee”. Teach them the sounds, not so much the letter names. Letter names won’t teach them how to read.
  - DON’T equate the letter “a” to apple, or “b” for “ball”.  You need to relate the letter to the sound, not to a word or object.
  - DON’T have them color or circle pictures as a way to identify letter sounds. Only do it after they already know how to recognize the letter-sound association, and they can hear and isolate the sounds. Using pictures can be confusing too. You might have a picture of an owl but your child might call it a bird instead. And although “owl” begins with the letter “o”, it doesn’t begin with the /o/ sound but rather the /ow/ sound.”

• Make sure you have a plan how you are going to cover the complete phonemic code. Don’t teach haphazardly. Have a system. For example, first give them a foundation of basic, simple letter-sound relationship. Then, advance to blends, consonant digraphs, vowel combinations, r-controlled vowels and other complexities.  There may be 26 letters but there are 44 sounds.
• Teach in small chunks at a time. Give children time to practice and master what they’ve learned before moving on.
• Pronounce the sounds correctly. For example, /b/ is not “buh”. The sound should be short and crisp. If you add the “uh” to every sound, it will be more difficult for your child to learn how to blend the sounds to make words.

Learning letter-sound association is only one tool to helping your children learn to read, but it is a very effective tool.

If you are looking for a software that will help you teach phonics in a systematic way, take a look at ClickN Read Phonics. The lessons are all ready online. It will feel like a fun game to play on the computer. It generates a report after each lesson so you know whether your child has mastered the sounds yet or not. You can repeat the lessons as many times as you want.

Click the affiliate banner below to have a free trial.

ClickN READ Phonics and ClickN SPELL online learning programs have everything you need to teach reading and spelling guaranteed or your money back.

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ClickN READ Phonics and ClickN SPELL are designed to teach beginning reading and spelling for children as early as the age of 3 years old. ClickN KIDS products are also a great solution for older children that may be struggling with their reading and spelling skills and have also proven to be very successful working with learning disabilities as well as individuals learning English as a second language.

My 3 year old son is using this program and loves it. Why don’t you give it a try too.

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Here’s a list of skills that you can help your kindergartner with:

• Recognize upper and lower case letters.
• Learn consonant sound and short vowel sounds.
• Identify rhyming words. If you give them two words, they should be able to tell you if they rhyme or not.
• Be able to produce rhyming words. Give them one word and ask them to think of another word that rhymes.
• Give exercises to identify initial sounds. You can show a bunch of pictures and have them pick out ones that start with a certain sound. Another idea would be to have a row of pictures and have them select a picture that has the same initial sound as the first picture. You can also write several letters underneath a picture and have them circle the correct letter that represents the initial sound of the picture.
• Teach them how to write their name.
• Teach them to count up to 30.
• Help them learn 1-1 correspondence. In other words, not only do the know how to rattle off numbers but they can relate it to quantity. Together you can count the staircase, apples, candies, chairs, cars etc….
• Teach them to recognize numbers up to 20.
• Learn how to recognize patterns. You can do this easily with a pencil and paper. Just draw simple drawings like “moon”, “star”, “moon”, “star” ___? Ask them what comes next.
• Play board games that use a die. Teach them how to recognize the number of dots on the die without counting.

You can give your children a few minutes of fun playing online games.  There are online phonic programs and also online spelling programs you can use. Children love animation and if the program is enjoyable, they will learn quickly. Plus, different forms of learning will break the monotony.

Have fun playing around with words and numbers.

Since my son D1 had no problem with ClickN Read Phonics lesson 3 & 4, we moved on to lesson 5. He was very enthusiastic to start his lesson. Probably because he successfully completed the last 2 lessons and that gave him confidence. In lesson 5, he still had opportunities to practice listening and identifying the letters A, M, S and T. However, 2 more letters were added: C and D. Still no problems for my son. He breezed through the lesson. Ermm… okay, maybe he still needs more practice with blending sounds.

Like before, after finishing 1 lesson, my son asked to do another lesson. So we continued to lesson 6. Still on A,M,S,T,C and D. But looking at his report, he seemed to have done better this time round. A sign of improvement I guess.

Then ClickN Read Phonics is a wonderful tool to teach reading to kindergarten children. If you would like your children to try out ClickN Read Phonics, you can do so for free. Just click the affiliate banner below:

Just so you know, how I teach my son to read is not just confined to using this online software. I do other reading activities too. For example, one of the words introduced by the software is “at”. So I did a quick activity where I put different beginning sounds in front of the word “at”. First of all I wrote down the word “at” on a whiteboard (for some reason, my kids all love to use the whiteboard). Then I wrote the letter “c” in front to form the word “cat”. I would make the individual sounds /c/ /a/ /t/, then blend it for my son to hear. I had him repeat after me too. I went through a few words such as “fat”, “rat”, “mat”, “pat”, “bat” and “sat”. After which I listed down all the beginning sounds on the left side of the board. On the right side of the board I had the word “at” with a blank in front.

___ at

As I called out a word, I had my son point to the correct beginning sound. So if I said “rat”, he had to point to the letter “r”.

Here’s another reading activity we did. This one is to build up his phonemic awareness. We went out to run some errands yesterday. In the car, I played a simple game to help him learn rhyming words. I would say 2 words, and if he thought it rhymed, he had to clap his hands. Before this, I haven’t really done much to help him identify rhyming words. He was doing a lot of guessing. We’ll definitely need to do more of this.

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Not long ago, I wrote a review on ClickN Read Phonics. It’s an online program that can teach children how to read.

Well, there are lots of people writing reviews online. But how do you know if what they’re saying is trustworthy? There is no guarantee that they’ve used the products or services themselves. So why should you trust them?

I don’t want to be one of those people. So, I’ve decided to let you follow along as I teach my 3 year old son (soon to be 4) how to read using this online reading program. I’m inviting you to take a peek at how I teach my child to read. Then you can decide for yourself, if your children can also benefit from this reading software.

Let me first give you a little background about my son’s reading ability. He knows all the alphabets and their corresponding sounds. He also knows quite a number of words by sight. We did 80 words from the Dolch list. But I’m sure he knows more words than that as he will take some of his favorite books and read them by himself.

I tried starting him on ClickN Read Phonics a few months back. I didn’t continue as I realized he still couldn’t blend words. To develop this ability, I played the “can you guess what I’m saying” game. I would stretch out simple words like “cat” and “mop” and he would try to guess what I’m saying. For example, I would say “mmmmm ooooooooo p” for the word “mop”. I also used alphabet cards to let him see how to put a word together. For example, I would lay out the alphabet cards m-o-p to make the word. I would point to the individual letters and say the corresponding sounds. Then I would blend it for him to hear. After which I would mix the cards up and ask him arrange it back to form the word. Sometimes I would put a whole bunch of alphabet cards on the table. I would say a word and he would have to pick from the pile the correct alphabets and arrange them in the right order to form the word.

So today, we started with ClickN Read Phonics again. Since he already knows all the sounds of the alphabet, I started him on lesson 3. There are 5 parts to the lesson.

1. He had to listen to the sound and the click the corresponding alphabet.
2. He had to listen to the sound then find on the keyboard the corresponding alphabet.
3. He was tested on beginning sounds. He was shown 6 words and he had to choose the right word that had the specified beginning sound.
4. He had to listen to sounds being blended into words. Then he had to click on the right word.
5. Reading practice. He was shown a sentence and he had to read along with the doggy instructor.

At the end, this is his individual lesson report.

As you can see, the report shows what he knows, what he’s not sure of and what he needs practice in. I can see he has progressed from a few months ago. At least now he is able to do the exercises. He can now blend words. Not perfectly yet, but at least he knows how. As you can see, the focus in lesson 3 is on the letters A, M, S and T.

I asked him if he wanted to stop and he said he wanted to do some more. So we went on to lesson 4. Not much different from lesson 3. Still on the same letters and sounds. I guess it’s a good reinforcement for the previous lesson.  In the end, this is his report for lesson 4.

To tell you the truth, I was a bit occupied with the baby when he did lesson 4. But he managed to get through it by himself. It’s good there is a report at the end. At least I know how he performed. Not bad.

Okay, so that is the first peek at my son learning how to read. Stay tuned for more.

p.s. Did you know you can try ClickN Read lessons for free? Just click on the banner below. And if you are interested, save $10 off your order today with coupon code: CNKB2S10 exp. 10/31/10

I am a very eager parent when it comes to teaching children to read. I’m no expert nor do I have a teaching degree. However, there are lots of information out there, whether it be through books, magazines or online that can help you successfully teach your children to read. That is how I did it.  Anyway, I’m here to tell you that Reading Rockets has a video program that you’ll want to see if you want to teach your children to read. See what experts have to say and see first hand what teachers are doing. It will give you teaching ideas and I’m sure that’s something you need.

Here’s the list of videos. It is actually a 1/2 hour program.

• Sounds and Symbols
• Fun With Phonemes
• Letters and Sounds
• Helping Struggling Readers
• Assessments By Specialists
• Deaf Children Master Reading
• Norman Bridwell: A Writer’s Secret
• The Alphabetic Principle