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When it comes to teaching children early literacy skills, phonics is a crucial part of that process. Now that it’s summer, you may be wondering how you can help your child begin learning (or continue building) those important phonics skills so that they will be ready for school. Learning at home can be difficult, especially during the summer. You may not even know where to start. That’s okay! Let’s start with the basics.
What is Phonics?
Phonics is how we teach young children the relationship between sounds and letters. This is why when starting out, we want to teach letter names and letter sounds together. Once children know the sound each letter makes, they can then begin to put letters together to form words. When teaching early reading skills, we want to encourage children to sound out words (instead of guessing what the word is). When children have a strong foundation in phonics skills, this makes it easier to build on that foundation later on when children are beginning to read full texts.
In addition to phonics, it’s also important to be practicing phonological awareness skills with your child. Phonological awareness is the awareness of the sounds in words. While phonics puts sounds and written words together, phonological awareness focuses on just the sounds. Skills like recognizing rhyming words, identifying syllables in a spoken word, and identifying phonemes (or the smallest unit of sound in a word) are some of the phonological awareness skills young children need to learn before they begin reading.
Now that you have a basic understanding of what skills you want to be focusing on, here are a few tips for successful phonics lessons you can start using with your own kids this summer to help them get ready for school.
Focus On Phonics Basics
When working with your child, try to focus on the basic information they need to learn. For example, if you have a rising kindergartner, you’ll want to focus on helping them learn letter names and sounds and then show them how to start blending letters to make CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words. Keep it simple! This way both you and your child won’t become too overwhelmed with everything they have to learn. You can also keep the activities simple. Sometimes all you need is some letter cards and a white board to start. Show your child the letter card and the picture, emphasizing the first sound in the word that begins with that letter. Have your child use the white board to practice writing the letter. For CVC words, you can give your child magnetic letters to start building words using the letters they’ve learned. It’s really that simple!
Keep It Short
When doing a lesson with your child, it doesn’t have to be long; keep it short. You’ll be amazed with how much you can get done during a 5 to 10 minute lesson! Keep your child focused on the task at hand by moving the activity forward quickly. Give clear, concise directions. Model for your child how to do an activity, do it with them, and then give them a chance to do it on their own. Observe your child carefully throughout the lesson to see if they’re getting distracted or tired, and end there. You can always go back to it later when your child is ready to focus again.
Don’t Force It
It’s so important to remember not to force your child to complete an activity! Forcing a child to sit at a desk for a long time working when they are just not able to sit still and focus isn’t going to help them learn. It usually ends with both of you feeling frustrated and then nothing gets done. Believe me; I understand the struggle! This is something I have to continually remind myself of time and time again in my own tutoring practice. There are many times when I have an activity planned and the child I’m working with is having none of it. The most effective strategy I’ve found in working with a child who isn’t interested in doing the activity is to give them a choice. Sometimes letting them choose an activity where they are practicing the same skill but are able to be more active can really go a long way in motivating them to learn. And sometimes, you just need to take a brain break. Go outside and let a little energy out! The most important thing to remember is to be patient and be consistent. Learning phonics skills is incredibly difficult and takes a lot of time. That’s okay! Your child will feel supported if they know you are there to help them every step of the way.
Keep It Fun
It’s 100% okay to keep things fun and interesting. In fact, that’s the best way to get your child motivated to learn. It’s also easy if you’re willing to think a little outside the box. Take opportunities throughout the day even when it’s not learning time to point out things you notice around you. If your child sees a dog while going for a walk, you could ask your child, “What’s the first sound you hear in the word ‘dog’?” Make learning time into a game. Have your child write letters on pieces of construction paper, spread them all over the room, and then have your child hop from letter to letter, telling you the sound each letter makes. Read books with your child. Books with lots of colorful pictures and rhyming words can be fantastic resources for learning about rhyming words, introducing new vocabulary, and discussing what happens in the book (retelling is an important skill for kindergarten). You can also sing nursery rhymes, do finger plays, and encourage pretend play with your child. These are all important parts of learning early literacy skills!
Need Some Extra Help?
Maybe you’ve tried all of these strategies, but you’re still having trouble and you really need someone to help. Please feel free to reach out to me! I’m Elizabeth, an early literacy tutor who helps kids just like yours become confident, fluent readers. I do a lot of work with rising kindergartners and first graders by helping them build a strong foundation of early literacy skills that will help them as they enter school. I would love to work with you and your child too! You can find me at my profile.
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