| As parents, we are naturally concerned about our | | | | found at advanced reading levels. |
| children's education and so take an interest in the | | | | To help your child learn to read with phonics there |
| various options available to provide reading help | | | | are a number of options available to you. Firstly |
| for kids. Research shows that one of the best | | | | you could use phonics books that set out specific |
| ways to teach your child to read is by guided | | | | programmes for reading using phonics. In this case |
| reading, which is basically reading with your child | | | | you need to make sure that the books you |
| and helping them with words they don't know. | | | | select are at the right level for your child to |
| With guided reading your child will begin to | | | | match their reading ability, but also ensure that |
| associate particular sounds to the words that | | | | the material is appropriate for them and will keep |
| they are reading. To fast track this process and | | | | their interest. Increasingly in the modern world |
| endow children with reading skills for life, research | | | | parents are now turning to the internet to find |
| shows the best option for children is to learn to | | | | online resources when trying to get reading help |
| read with phonics. | | | | for kids. There are now available many online |
| Phonics programmes utilise a particular teaching | | | | resources that teach the phonics reading system. |
| system that enables children learn the sounds that | | | | Online resources can have the advantage of being |
| letters and combinations of letters make, and to | | | | able to offer a wider range of phonics teaching |
| blend those sounds to form words; subsequently | | | | material that can be more closely tailored to the |
| children can use those learned sounds to 'decode' | | | | needs of a particular child. |
| words that they do not know. The phonics | | | | The majority of phonics reading programmes will |
| system is extraordinary, because it teaches | | | | also use pictures to illustrate the stories. For |
| children the sounds of letters and words. By | | | | example if you are reading a phonics story about |
| helping your child to learn the characteristic sounds | | | | a cat to your child, there would be pictures of |
| made by particular vowels and consonants and | | | | cats around the text to help the child to associate |
| combinations of the two, you enable the child to | | | | the word 'cat' with a picture of a cat. |
| break down the sounds of words and pronounce | | | | From this we can clearly see that phonics teaches |
| words they have never come across before. This | | | | children not only how to pronounce letters and |
| process is equally effective for intermediate | | | | words, but also the essential meaning of those |
| readers can take advantage of phonics in the | | | | words. Because of this, many governments and |
| same way that beginners can. In some cases | | | | teaching bodies globally have advocated the use |
| even quite advanced readers can use phonics to | | | | of phonics (sometimes referred to as synthetic |
| further improve their readings skills by using the | | | | phonics) and even made the use of phonics |
| more complex combinations of letters that can be | | | | reading techniques compulsory in schools. |