Your Child Can Learn Phonics in 6 Steps
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by Mary Follin
A lot of people are surprised that anyone can learn phonics in 6 steps, let alone a young child. When I developed my program, Teach Your Child to Read™, I knew it had to be easy—and short. Indeed, I was able to fit the entire process into 6 steps.
The ability to learn phonics is a lot simpler than most people think it is, at least, the amount of phonics you need to know for learning to read. If you’re a linguist, well, that’s another story. In this article, I share my 6 steps to learn phonics. I also encourage you to read these instructions for teaching the first two steps on your own—without a fancy program or complicated lessons. You can develop your child into a beginning reader in these two steps—for free. All you need is a dry-erase board and a few minutes each day. Lessons need be no longer than 5 minutes, which keeps it easy for you to squeeze in. |
It's surprisingly easy for most children to learn phonics.
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6 Steps to Learn Phonics
STEP 1: Teach your child the sound of each individual letter. (If you don’t know the sounds of the letters, your child’s teacher or a fellow homeschooler should be able to help you.) Watch this video for instructions on how to present the sounds to your child:
WATCH: Instructions on how to present STEP 1
STEP 2: Teach your child how to ‘add’ individual sounds together to sound out words. This is the step where your child actually learns how to read. Go slowly with this one; translating sounds into words opens up a whole new world for your child, and it may take some time and practice for your child to understand how it works. If your child has trouble combining sounds to make words, try singing the words to string the sounds together, which helps your child understand that the combined sounds actually create a whole word.
STEP 3: Teach your child the sound of blended letters (e.g., sh, th, and ch). This step is basically a repeat of the first step. Easy!
STEP 4: Teach your child how to ‘add’ individual sounds and blended sounds together to sound out harder words, much like the second step.
STEP 5: Teach your child the rule of the silent vowel. This step is a little more difficult, so it may benefit you to purchase a program for guidance or ask for help from a teacher or fellow homeschooler.
STEP 6: Go to the library and check out books your beginning reader can read to you. As you can imagine, this is the most rewarding step of all!
Now that you see 'how to learn phonics in 6 Steps' spelled out, it looks pretty easy, doesn’t it? If you’re interested in helping your child learn phonics, give it a try.
STEP 3: Teach your child the sound of blended letters (e.g., sh, th, and ch). This step is basically a repeat of the first step. Easy!
STEP 4: Teach your child how to ‘add’ individual sounds and blended sounds together to sound out harder words, much like the second step.
STEP 5: Teach your child the rule of the silent vowel. This step is a little more difficult, so it may benefit you to purchase a program for guidance or ask for help from a teacher or fellow homeschooler.
STEP 6: Go to the library and check out books your beginning reader can read to you. As you can imagine, this is the most rewarding step of all!
Now that you see 'how to learn phonics in 6 Steps' spelled out, it looks pretty easy, doesn’t it? If you’re interested in helping your child learn phonics, give it a try.
Ready for Your Child to Learn Phonics? Try Our 6 STEP Program for Free!
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Founder and creator of Teach Your Child to Read™, Mary Follin was a systems engineer with IBM early in her career. Over the course of her career, she has worked in a variety of industries: market research, product design, service innovation, and multiple professional services firms. She also wrote Ethyr, which won the the Moonbeam Children's Book Award and the Gertrude Warner Book Award. Mary currently writes a column titled ASK MOM, an advice column featured every other Friday in Fredericksburg Parent & Family magazine. ASK MOM won a 2021 Parenting Media Association award.
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