Let's learn the phonic!

Learning the letter names is important, but it is much more important to learn the the letters make. Here you can do both, but the emphasis is on the. Why? Simple, once your child knows the each letter makes he/she can then start to read.
This is the first step to reading fluency!


Step 1

Learn the that the 26 letters make. Each letter makes a sound, it is important that children know what the letters make so later they can put the together to make words. Some letters make more than one sound, in order to not confuse young learners only teach one sound per letter (the most common sound), for example i is for in or ink NOT ice-cream! The most important letters are A,E,I,O,U. They are also the most difficult as they sound quite similar.


Click on a letter to begin!

A
B C D
E
F G H
I
J K L
M N P
O
Q R S
T V W
U
X Y Z


Step 2

Help your child to blend 3 letter words together. At this step it is important to keep reviewing step 1, especially the that the vowels make.

Middle A
(cat and mad)
Middle E
(ten and pet)
Middle I
(pin and pig)
Middle O
(dog and hop)
Middle U
(bug and fun)


Step 3

Next children will learn the first, and learn that when you put two letters together they can make a new sound. SH, TH and CH are used here.


SH TH and CH (ship, thin and chip)


Step 4

We continue to learn about. Starting with 2 letter such as BL and FR, then going on to 3 letter such as SHR and STR.


L, R and S (black, green and spider)
End (jump, end and lunch)


Step 5

The five vowel letters each have 2. First we learnt the short sound (in step 1) now it is time to learn the long. (think what sound does A make in cat (that's the short sound) - and what sound does it make in rain (that's the long sound). There are two ways to make a long sound, first with a magic 'e' - cake, and second with 2 or 3 letters put together - rain.
Long A (late, snail and day)
Long E (bee, tea and see)
Long I (why, high and tie)
Long O (toad, coat and toe)
Long U (moon, rude and blue)


Step 6

Getting complicated now! There are lots of 'strange' groups of letters that make particular. Like, 'ar' in star and 'oy' in boy. In this step we go through the most common. And then we're done!


AR (car and star)
OI OY OU and OW (boy and cow)
IR UR and ER (girl and burger)
OR AU AL AW (draw, door and all)
AIR EAR ARE ERE and EIR (chair and their)


You may notice that not all are listed in this system, (one such omission is ph (sounding F). It is not necessary to teach every single sound in English. This system takes students through all the most common ones; the others will be picked up naturally as they read more and more.