A Must Have Phonics Guide Every Parent Should Follow

You know that feeling when you’re watching a movie with the sound off? You see the actors moving their mouths, but have no idea what they are saying. That is what reading feels like for a child without phonological awareness (PA) – the ability to hear and identify the sounds in words.

As a parent, you always wish the best for your child. But when you see them struggling with speaking and are not able to express what they feel, it can be really heartbreaking.

You desperately want to help them explore speaking and enjoying the little things around them, but when you look up ‘how to teach reading’, you are hit with confusing methods and do not know what actually works.

Consider this your simple, clear guide to help your child connect sounds and words, understanding phonics.

The Best time to Start Phonics is sooner than you think

Your infant’s brain is already capable of noticing sounds and movements around them. They are naturally curious about their surrounding and are constantly fixed in the learning mode, trying to grasp everything happening around them.

By nine months, they are capable of linking songs and actions to specific objects. This is why the experts urge parents to start teaching early and subtly best time to begin teaching is now, and it’s best to include it in your daily routine.

Every day moments can do the deed, sing simple rhymes while feeding them, describe things around them, or let them hear sounds naturally. You can point to objects or people and name them to help differentiate things. These small interactions help build early sound recognition.

Experts say it’s Important to Start With Words And Then Letters.

If you’re ready to build a strong speech foundation for your children. The first step should not be learning the alphabet; it should rather be focused on hearing sounds and understanding the context, which is called Phonological Awareness (PA). This helps your child recognize that spoken words are made up of smaller pieces of sounds called phonemes.

A child must be able to hear the language and the words so that they can connect those sounds to the letters they see. Experts agree that your child’s ability to hear and play with sounds in words is the biggest factor in learning to read.

You can spend only five minutes a day, with simple, slow prep games, try practicing with rhyming words and asking your child to ‘cat’, ‘hat’, ‘mat’, and train their ears to recognize similar endings. You can also practice syllable clap by clapping out the parts of names like ‘Mi-ssou-ri’, ‘Mom-my’, or familiar words.

Learning these sound games is key to getting the brain ready for phonics.

Growing Stronger with Phonics

Phonics is how children learn to connect sounds they hear with the letters they see. Introducing phonics is a step-by-step process that starts with the ears and moves to the eyes. That’s how your children learn the secret code of reading. Here’s a simple, easy four step path that Missouri’s experts trust to build confident readers.

Phase 1: Get Their Ears Ready for Reading (Phonological Awareness)

Before your child learn letters, they should be able to hear and recognize the sounds of spoken words. At this stage, it is all about sound, not letters. We start big and move small,

Try counting how many words are in a sentence
Start with clapping out the parts in names ( “Mi-ssou-ri” is three claps).
Start with clapping out the parts in names ( “Mi-ssou-ri” is three claps).

The most important skill to build is phonemic awareness, helping your child hear and play with each sound, which is the foundation for becoming an avid reader.

Phase 2: Build the Bridge from Sounds To Letters

Once the child can hear and play with sounds, it’s time to help them build a bridge connecting sounds to their letters.

Each sound (phoneme) has a written symbol; learn to connect the sounds to symbols. E.g., the sound /m/ is represented by the letter M.
Start with stretchable sounds like /m/ and /s/ before quick ones like /p/, /t/. Be clear and say, “This letter M makes the sound /m/” and show the letter to the child.
Follow a simple order like short vowels: a,e, i,o,u, and common consonants: m,t,s,p,f,n.
Use the same order and repeat. Repeating words helps your child remember and start reading simple words faster and with confidence.

Phase 3: Where Sounds Become Words

After learning to connect sounds and letters, you can move on to reading and writing. Combining individual sounds into whole words, simply point to each letter, say the pure sound, and then slide your finger across the word to blend the sounds. This is how you read
Example: T-O-P → /t/, /o/, /p/ → “top”.

Then practice breaking a word into its separate sounds. This is how you spell, for this step, say the word and have the child count the sounds they hear.
Example: Say the word “sun”. Your child taps the sound as they hear /s/ tap1, /u/ tap2, /n/ tap3.
If they can hear the sounds, they know to write three letters.

Phase 4: Growing Strong In Phonics

The simple sound-to-letter connection has been learnt, now your children are ready for the reading ladder. The instructions for this stage are logical and are a step-by-step path to move from the easiest words to the more complex ones.

CVC words (Consonant-vowel-Consonant): These are the simplest, imagine them to be blocks: three sounds, three letters like cat, dog, or sun.
BDiagraph: Next, introduce pairs of letters that make only one new sound. Even though you see two letters like sh (as in ship), ch (as in chair), or th (as in bath).
Blends: A group of two or three consonants where you can still hear the sounds. They blend, but their individual sounds remain separate. Example, bl (as in black), or st (as in stop).
Vowel Teams and R-controlled Vowels: These a more complex vowel patterns. Vowel teams are when two vowels work together to make one sound (like ai in ‘rain’). And R-Controlled vowels are tricky sounds where the letter ‘R’ changes the sound of the
vowel before it ( like ar in ‘car’).

Conclusion: Phonics for Growing Minds.

Understanding how words really work is what learning to read is all about. The moment combining letters starts to make sense, and your child starts seeing reading as something fun and exciting. Teaching phonics to kids creates the base of speaking and understanding the language. Ready to find a learning environment outside the home that supports your views? Child Care Aware of Missouri gives you referrals and guidance on finding quality care.