Help Your Child Become A Phonics Reading Pro

Play A Fun Reading Game

For a fun way to anchor the skills your child has been learning, play a reading game with some of the words.

For example: Take some of the words your son has learned how to sound out and build, and play a rhyming game. Use your movable alphabet to build the word "hat". Then ask your child to build a word that rhymes with "hat". Then take turns building words to see which one of you can come up with the longest list.

Your child will love this game, learn how to spell words faster and easier, and gain greater confidence!

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Allow Your Child To Master Short Vowel Reading And Gain A Momentum

Allow you child to move ahead as quickly as possible or take as much time as needed. It is very important that he learns the sounds of all of the alphabet first. Then play games with him where he builds three and four letter short vowel words.

Purchase plastic movable alphabet letters or make some using thick, index paper and colored, permanent markers. Use different colors for the vowels and consonants. For example, use blue for consonants and red for vowels. Color is another key element for your child to  learn how to read quickly and easily. Next, cut out some pictures of short vowel words and paste them on card stock. Use the movable alphabet to spell the words that your child sounds out. For example, take a picture of a cap, have your son sound out the word... and place the movable alphabets next to the picture.

Build lots of short vowel "a" words before moving on to the next vowel. Try to build fifty words or more. A good starter list to practice with is something like this... cat, cap, man, rat, lap, ran, hand, ant, ham, map, land, sat,... you see what I mean. Your child will love it and soak it up like a sponge!

So, magic key number three is...practice, practice, practice and allow your child to develop a momentum of victory.

Teach Phonics In Family Groups For Fast, Easy Assimilation

It becomes a laborious task for your child to learn how to read when given an odd mixture of phonograms to work with. The brain records and remembers things better when they fit into logical categories. For example, if you teach the short "a" sound and then jump over to teaching that "ph" makes the "f" sound, it will make it more difficult for your child to memorize those facts. Instead, teach him all of the five short vowel sounds a, e, i, o, and u first. Then add that "y" can also make a short vowel sound and hang out in that family sometimes.

So, magic key and tip number 2 is, teach phonics in family groups and begin with short vowels first.

Don't Teach The Names of the Alphabet First

One of the worst things you can do in the process of helping your child become a reading phonics pro is to teach the alphabet first. Children have a hard time learning to read once they learn the names first.

For example, try reading the word "c a t" using the names of the letters. Let's take "c" , its name sounds like "see". Then take a look at "a", its name will not make the sound "a" like in apple in this word. And "t" sounds like "tea". By this simple illustration you can tell how this would be confusing to a child.

So, magic key and tip number one is...teach the sounds of the alphabet first, not the names.