Teaching phonics can be as easy as teaching a song. Each letter makes a sound and these sounds come together in a chorus to sing words. Once you make it a song, the kids will easily gravitate to learning phonics.
How to teach
Ask the child if she knows that letters can sing. Then show her a letter such as “A” and say that a sings “ah”. The ask your child to sing with the letter and sing the phonetic sound together. Then introduce another letter such as “T”. Sing the “T” sound as you did with the “A” sound. Then ask your child if she knew that letters could sing a duet. Then sing the two sounds together to get the “at” sound. Once your child masters that sound begin adding in sounds that create three letter words such as “cat”, “bat”, or “sat”. Soon your child will easily sound out simple words. Continue with word families and have fun doing it!
A great way to encourage phonics and play this game is to have foam letters or bulletin board letters to work from. If you have free standing letters to work from then you can continue to use the same letters for every lesson. However, you will want to keep a list of mastered sounds and words. Continue to review both. An easy way to store the mastered sounds and words is in an index card box. Review several daily and the begin a new lesson.
Teaching phonics does not have to be a difficult process. Go at your child’s pace to build a strong foundation. The stronger the foundation the better prepared the child will be to read and the easier it will be for the child to sound out words she has not previously seen. Just sit together and have fun as you sing out some words.