Teaching phonics at home can be a fun and rewarding experience. Phonics provides the foundation for reading and spelling skills and is important for your child’s early literacy development. By implementing fun strategies for teaching phonics at home, you can create a learning environment that sparks your child's curiosity and sets them on the path to becoming a confident reader.
In this step-by-step guide, our literacy team will discuss fun and practical strategies for teaching phonics at home. We'll share interactive games, hands-on activities, and must-have technology. Below, we’ve also included tips for teaching phonics to different ages, including toddlers, preschoolers, kindergarteners, and older children.
Ready to learn how to teach phonics? Here’s our step-by-step guide.
Content Quick Links:
Overview - 5 Steps to Teaching Phonics
Why is teaching phonics important?
Overview - The 5 Steps to Teaching Phonics
Below is a quick look at the five steps to teaching phonics at home. Keep reading for a more detailed explanation of each step.
- Teach phonemic awareness.
- Introduce letter-sound knowledge.
- Practice building and blending words.
- Teach phonics patterns and rules.
- Practice word analysis and decoding.
Before we take a closer look at these steps and introduce our fun strategies for teaching phonics, let's take a moment to understand what “phonics” really means and why it’s important.
What is phonics?
Phonics is a method of teaching children the relationship between sounds and the letters (or groups of letters) that represent those sounds. Put more simply, phonics teaches children to break down words into individual sounds (i.e., phonemes) and to blend sounds to form words. Phonics aims to help children learn about and use the alphabetic principle (or alphabetic code).
You can think of phonics as a game of connecting the dots. Each letter (or letter combination) represents a sound; when combined, these sounds form words that carry meaning.
Now that you know what phonics is, let’s look at why it’s important.
Why is teaching phonics important?
Teaching phonics is important because it equips children with the skills needed to read, spell, and accurately pronounce words. Thus, by teaching phonics at home, you can build a strong foundation for your child’s literacy skills.
The key benefits of teaching phonics include:
- Enhances Reading Proficiency - phonics helps children become proficient and confident readers. That's because when children can accurately and effortlessly understand the associations between letters and sounds, they can decode words more easily. This ability to decode allows them to read fluently, leading to improved reading comprehension.
- Improves Spelling Skills - teaching phonics helps children read and strengthens their spelling skills. By understanding sound-letter combinations and patterns, children can apply phonetic knowledge to spell words accurately - even when they’re faced with unfamiliar or complex terms.
- Expands Vocabulary - the ability to decode and understand a wider range of words broadens a child's vocabulary and helps improve their reading comprehension. This is also beneficial because the more words your child knows, the more they can express themselves!
- Promotes Independent Learning - learning phonics empowers children to become confident, independent readers and learners. When children understand the rules and patterns of phonics, they gain the skills to decipher words independently. As a result of this independence, they can explore books and engage in self-directed learning.
As you can see, there are numerous benefits to teaching phonics. So, if you're wondering, "How can I teach my child phonics?" keep reading! Below are the steps for how to teach phonics at home.
How to Teach Phonics at Home - 5 Steps for Parents
Teaching phonics at home is easier than it sounds. That said, phonics instruction requires progression through distinct stages - each of which builds upon the last. Therefore, you must follow specific steps (in the correct order) when teaching phonics to your child.
What are the best strategies for teaching phonics? Below are the steps you’ll need to follow to effectively teach phonics and help your child become a confident reader and speller.
Step 1: Develop Phonemic Awareness
The first step to teaching phonics at home is to help your child develop phonemic awareness.
Phonemic awareness is the ability to recognize, identify, and manipulate individual sounds (known as phonemes) in spoken language*. It involves understanding that words are made up of sequences of sounds and being able to isolate, blend, segment, and manipulate those sounds.
Research shows that phonological and phonemic awareness are powerful predictors of a child's reading proficiency. That’s because phonemic awareness helps your child understand that letters are symbols that represent sounds and, thus, prepares them to learn to read! As a result, developing phonemic awareness is a crucial step in building strong reading skills.
PRO TIP: To help your child develop phonemic awareness, do phonemic awareness activities with them. For example, have them practice identifying a word's beginning, middle, or ending sounds. Explore more games and activities here - Phonemic Awareness Activities.
*It's important to note that phonemic awareness focuses only on the auditory aspect of language. It does not involve written letters or symbols.
Step 2: Introduce Letter-Sound Knowledge
Once your child has developed phonemic awareness, you can introduce letter-sound associations. During this step in teaching phonics, your child will learn to match each letter in the alphabet with its corresponding sound. This skill is essential to master before building more advanced phonics skills.
Start by introducing the most common sounds for each letter. You can introduce these sounds using tools like alphabet charts, flashcards, or the alphabet (ABC) song. You can also incorporate this lesson into daily activities. For example, point out letters on signs, packaging or in books. Encourage your child to say the sound out loud and connect each letter (and its sound) with a familiar word to enhance memory.
For instance, you could point to 'A' on a cereal box and say, "There's the letter 'A.' A is for 'apple'!"
Step 3: Practice Word Building and Blending
Once your child has mastered letter-sound associations, you can move on to blending and segmenting, key skills for reading and spelling. These activities strengthen phonemic awareness and lay the groundwork for decoding and encoding words.
To teach word-building and blending skills at home, demonstrate how sounds come together to form words. For example, show how the sounds /k/ /a/ /t/ blend to make "cat."
To teach segmenting, use letter cards or magnets to break words down into individual sounds. For example, lay out letter cards to spell the word 'hat.' Then, help your child break down the word into individual letter sounds - i.e., /h/ /a/ /t/.
Celebrate progress and gradually introduce more complex words as your child improves!
Step 4: Teach Phonics Patterns and Rules
The next step in teaching phonics is to introduce your child to phonics patterns and rules. These patterns and rules will help them understand the relationships between letters and sounds and improve their ability to decode and encode words.
To start, introduce your child to common phonics patterns, such as digraphs (e.g., the 'sh' in 'ship'), vowel teams (e.g., the 'ai' in 'rain'), and consonant blends (e.g., the 'st' in 'stop'). Then, move on to teaching more complex phonics rules, like silent e, long and short vowel sounds, and common sound-spelling patterns.
To teach these rules and patterns, use examples, visual aids, and hands-on activities. For example:
- Write 'ship' and 'shop' on a whiteboard or piece of paper. Read the words out loud, emphasizing the 'sh' sound.
- Show your child a picture of rain and say the word aloud. Highlight the 'ai' sound.
- Send your child on a scavenger hunt through the house to find a cap and a cape. Once they've found these items, demonstrate how the word 'cap' changes to 'cape' with silent 'e.'
Step 5: Practice Word Analysis and Decoding Skills
Now it’s time to help your child develop more advanced word analysis and decoding skills. This will boost reading fluency and accuracy.
In this step, your child will apply phonics patterns to decode unfamiliar words, analyze multisyllabic words, and identify prefixes and suffixes. In doing so, they'll also learn to use context clues to determine word meaning and pronunciation.
The best way for your child to practice word analysis and decoding is to use phonics books with decodable text. Use decodable books that follow phonics rules, gradually introducing texts that are suited to their level. When reading, encourage your child to sound out words and apply their knowledge.
PRO TIP: Kids reading apps, like Booka, are the best tools for practicing word analysis and decoding, as they offer access to hundreds of books all in one place.
Now that you know the steps to teaching phonics, it's time to start.
Remember, the key is to make learning entertaining and engaging. So, here are some fun phonics activities to spark your child's interest in letters and sounds!
10 Fun Phonics Activities To Do At Home
How do you teach phonics in a fun way? Here are ten fun activities and strategies for teaching phonics at home.
1. Silly Sound Safari
What you’ll need for this phonics activity:
- Household objects or toys
For this fun phonics activity, create a scavenger hunt where your child has to locate objects that start with a specific sound. For example, if you're focusing on the letter "B," challenge them to find a banana, a bumblebee, or perhaps even a band of boisterous baboons (okay, maybe not the last one). This game will have them giggling their way to phonics mastery.
2. Alphabet Aerobics
What you’ll need for this activity:
- Room to move around (indoors or outside)
Who says learning (and teaching phonics) can't be a workout? Turn phonics into a physical activity by doing the alphabet aerobics. Assign each letter a unique action and then spell out simple words or sounds together. For instance, when you say "cat," everyone jumps like a cat, "dog" triggers enthusiastic tail-wagging, and "zebra" encourages wild galloping across the room. Remember to stretch those muscles before engaging in some serious phonics fitness!
3. Rap It, Clap It
What you’ll need:
- Imagination
- BONUS: Fun costumes to perform in!
Phonics and rhythm go together like peanut butter and jelly. Turn your living room into a hip-hop stage and transform phonics lessons into a rap performance. Choose a letter or sound and create a catchy rap song around it. Throw in some snazzy dance moves, and let your kids be the phonics rockstars they were born to be. Who knows, you might discover the next big prodigy by teaching phonics at home!
4. Storytime with a Twist
What you’ll need:
- Storytelling skills (and a hint of imagination)
Unleash your inner storyteller and weave tales that revolve around phonics. Get creative with characters whose names start with the letter you're focusing on. Imagine a courageous cat named Cassidy who conquers crocodiles or a daring dog named Dennis who defies gravity. As you share these stories, emphasize the letter sounds and encourage your kids to join in. Soon enough, they'll be begging for "one more story, pleeease!"
5. Scrabble Shenanigans
What you’ll need for this phonics game:
- Scrabble
It's time to dust off that old Scrabble board and give it a phonics twist. Challenge your child to create words using the letters they have, but with a phonics rule in mind. For example, they can only use words with a specific vowel sound or words that start with a particular consonant blend. Not only will they sharpen their phonics skills, but you might also stumble upon some hilarious made-up words worthy of the Oxford dictionary.
6. Teaching Phonics with an Obstacle Course
What you’ll need for this activity:
- Some space - indoors or out
- Items to build an obstacle course (e.g., chairs, boxes, etc.)
Set up a phonics-themed obstacle course in your home or backyard. Create stations throughout the course that represent different sounds or phonics patterns. Encourage your child to navigate the course while they correctly identify or pronounce the focus sound at each station.
For example, one station could have objects that start with the letter 'b' (e.g., 'ball,' 'balloon,' 'bat'). When they arrive, your child should name the item and the sound it begins with.
7. Word Building with Playdough
What you’ll need for this phonics activity:
- Playdough (store-bought or home-made)
- Letter stamps or plastic letter cutters (or another tool that your child can use to draw or cut out letters from the playdough safely)
Give your child a variety of playdough colors and letter stamps or plastic letter cutters. Provide them with a word or set of phonics patterns and challenge them to create each word by stamping or cutting out the corresponding letters from the playdough.
This activity not only reinforces letter-sound associations but also enhances fine motor skills.
8. Rhyming Riddles for Teaching Phonics at Home
What you’ll need for this game:
- Creativity
Give your child clues in the form of rhymes and challenge them to guess the word you're thinking of. For example, you might say, "I have a long trunk, and I'm gray. I love to spray water and play. What am I?" (Answer: an elephant).
Once your child can solve your riddles, encourage them to create their own and challenge family or friends.
Tip: Turn this phonics game into a fun competition by keeping track of points. When someone guesses correctly, they receive a point and get to choose who makes up the next riddle!
9. Phonics Hopscotch
What you’ll need for this activity:
- Chalk or masking tape
This is a great way to get your child moving while practicing phonics! To begin, draw a hopscotch grid with chalk (or make one using masking tape). Then, write a letter or sound in each square. Now, call out a word and ask your child to hop to the square that matches the starting sound.
10. Rhyming Basket Toss
What you’ll need for this phonics game:
- Small basket or bin
- Soft balls or bean bags
- Flashcards with rhyming words
Place word flashcards in a basket and give your child a ball. Call out a word, and have your child toss the ball into the basket that holds a rhyming word. This game helps reinforce phonics and rhyming skills while having fun!
BONUS: Super Simple Activities for Teaching Phonics
What phonics activities for parents to do at home are super easy, with little to no setup or supplies required? If you’re looking for simple games and activities, here are some ideas.
- Sound Matching Game: Say a sound, and ask your child to find objects around the house that start with that sound.
- I Spy with Phonics: Play "I Spy" using phonics clues. For example, you might say, "I spy something that starts with the 's' sound." Now, your child should look around for something that starts with /s/ (e.g., ‘string’).
- Phonics Clap Game: Say a word and have your child clap out each sound they hear in the word.
- Sound Stretching: Say a word slowly, stretching out the sounds, and ask your child to guess the word.
- Word Blending Challenge: For advanced phonics practice, give your child two or three sounds and challenge them to blend the sounds to form a word. For example, say /st/ and /ar,/ and ask them to blend it into "star." You can increase the difficulty by adding longer blends like /spl/ and /ash/ to form the word "splash." This helps reinforce their understanding of more complex phonics skills like consonant blends and digraphs.
Remember, teaching phonics at home isn't just about decoding words - it's about creating a love for language, fostering imagination, and having a blast along the way. So, be sure to include the games and activities above to make learning phonics fun!
Now, you might be wondering - when should I start teaching phonics to my child? Here’s what you need to know about when to start.
When should you start teaching phonics?
Your child’s phonics journey should begin early - even before they start formal schooling. Research suggests that kids as young as three years old can benefit from exposure to phonics concepts. Your child may not be ready for comprehensive phonics instruction at this stage. However, you can begin to lay the groundwork by introducing letter sounds, engaging in rhyming games, and reading alphabet or ABC books together.
Preschool and kindergarten (i.e., ages three to six) mark a crucial phase for phonics instruction. During this time, your child’s brain is highly receptive to learning language and developing phonemic awareness. Therefore, many parents begin teaching phonics at home at this time.
That said, please remember that every child is unique. While some children are eager to dive into letter-sound relationships, others may need more time to develop language and pre-reading skills. Therefore, it's crucial to tailor phonics instruction to their developmental readiness.
To determine if your child is ready to start learning about phonics, watch for signs of readiness. These signs include:
- Showing interest in letters and sounds
- Recognizing familiar words
- Demonstrating curiosity about reading and writing
Do you think your child is ready to start learning phonics? Here are some tips to help you teach them at home.
Tips for Teaching Phonics at Home
Below are some tips for teaching phonics at home. We’ve also included specific tips for teaching phonics to toddlers, preschoolers, kindergarteners, and older children.
- Collaborate with Teachers - once your child begins formal schooling, phonics instruction becomes more structured and systematic. Schools often adopt specific phonics programs or approaches to teach letter-sound relationships, phonemic awareness, and blending skills. Therefore, it's essential to collaborate with your child's teachers so you can understand the phonics curriculum that's taught in their classroom and provide comparable support.
- Be Consistent - regular practice and reinforcement of phonics skills will help your child internalize letter-sound relationships, build a strong foundation for reading and spelling, and develop confidence.
Remember that teaching phonics is a gradual process. It starts slowly with early exposure and continues throughout a child's educational journey. By introducing phonics concepts at an appropriate age and building upon foundational skills, you can effectively support your child's literacy development.
Now, let's look at some specific recommendations for toddlers, preschoolers, kindergarteners, and older children.
How to Teach Phonics to Toddlers (Ages 1-3)
- Keep it fun and simple. For example, use nursery rhymes and songs that highlight repetitive sounds.
- Use real-life objects as examples. Point out everyday items and emphasize the starting sound. For instance, when you see a dog, make a point of saying - “Look at the d-d-dog!”
Engage in short and playful sessions. Engage your toddler with quick, spontaneous phonics activities. For example, play a game where you and your toddler take turns mimicking animal sounds. Say, "Let's be a cow! What sound does a cow make?" Then demonstrate by saying “m-oo.”
Tips for Teaching Phonics to Preschoolers (Ages 3-5)
- Introduce letter sounds gradually by pointing out letters in everyday life. Start with simple, familiar sounds, like /m/ for "mom." For example, show your preschooler the letter "M" on a cereal box and say, "Mmm, 'M' is for 'mommy.'"
- Sing rhyming songs and play sound games. For instance, sing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" and emphasize the rhyming words (i.e., ‘star’ and ‘are’). Rhymes help kids recognize sound patterns and develop phonemic awareness.
Read books with repetitive sounds. Choose books that reinforce sounds through repetition. You can find books like this on the Booka reading app for kids.
How to Teach Phonics to Kindergarten Kids (Ages 5-6)
- Focus on blending and segmenting sounds. In kindergarten, many children are ready to learn how to blend sounds to form words and to break words into individual sounds. Practice this skill with them by saying the individual sounds of a word slowly and asking them to create the word. For example, for “bat,” say each sound slowly (/b/ /a/ /t/) and have your child blend them to say the word.
- Play phonics games. Educational games work great for teaching phonics to kindergarteners because they make learning fun and interactive. For example, try a letter scavenger hunt. Call out the letter "P" and have your child find items starting with "P" around the house.
Practice sight words. When practicing phonics at home, incorporate kindergarten sight words for added education! For example, use flashcards with words like “am,” “but,” “must,” and “went,” practicing recognition and pronunciation.
Tips for How to Teach Phonics to Older Students (Ages 6+)
- Introduce more complex phonics patterns. For example, work on digraphs (e.g., "sh," "th"), blends (e.g., "bl," "gr"), and silent letters (e.g., silent e) with the help of advanced reading materials.
- Encourage independent reading. It’s important to encourage older children to read independently. To do so, provide age and developmentally-appropriate books that challenge your child’s phonics skills. Look for “just right books” - books that are not too hard and not too easy. It's also essential that these books include topics, characters, and scenarios that your child can relate to and will enjoy reading about.
- Use phonics-focused word games. Word-building games, like Scrabble or Boggle, are great for reinforcing phonics patterns with older students. For example, use Scrabble tiles to form words with challenging sounds (focusing on digraphs and longer words) and ask your child to sound them out.
Now that you have all the information and steps you’ll need to teach phonics at home, here’s a great tool to help you get started.
Tools for Teaching Phonics at Home
Looking for tools to help you teach phonics at home? Reading apps like Booka are perfect for fun, engaging, and interactive learning!
Booka helps parents simplify phonics instruction with children’s books designed to introduce letter-sound knowledge, practice word building and blending, teach phonics patterns and rules, practice word analysis and decoding skills, and more.
Check out Booka’s library of phonics books to start teaching phonics at home today!