🤷♀️🤔What is phonics?
When learning 🪑🔰English, a child🧑🍼 must be able to recognise🧠 the letters of the alphabet. Later, as their knowledge begins to 📈grow, they will learn that the ✒️letters make specific sounds. The sounds can then be blended to form words. Phonics is the ability to make sense of the 🙏 💫 sounds.
Why is phonics important?
Phonics is important because 👩👧👧helps us to understand👏 and learn 🧮 connection🥰🤩 between the 🎼sounds and the words.
Phonics helps children to read 📚and write. ✍️ Learning different letter sounds helps them to identify and sound out words, which then helps them to read.
For example: If you say the alphabet letters for the word, 🐈C A T, it sounds like “see" "ay" "tee” and does🤷❔ not sound like the 🙅♂️word 'cat'.
Learning phonics🎧 📣can teach children to say the letter sounds “c- a-t” and then blend them together to make 🐈 'cat'.
4️⃣ four fun🎉 ways to learn phonics at home!
💟1 - Reading should be encouraged every day.
💟2 - Make use of grapheme flashcards and say each sound out loud.
💟3 – When reading stories, encourage letter-sound recognition and sounding out.
💟4 - Play phonic games, like alphabet ball, alphabet phonics clip cards or erase the sound. (see below)
🥳🎮GAME: Alphabet 🥎ball
First, the 🧍♀️mum/dad calls out a letter and then the child🧑🍼 replies 📢 with a word that begins with that letter.
Next, mum/dad 🤾♀️🤾♂️ throws the🥎 ball to the child and lastly, the child calls out a letter for mum/dad.
Example: 🧍♀️Mum: t? Child: tree. 🌳
Mum 🤾♀️🤾♂️ throws🥎 ball to the child. Child: b? Mum: bird. 🐤
Child throws 🤾♀️🤾♂️ball to mum. Mum: m? Child: mouse. 👄
🥳🎮GAME: Alphabet phonics clip cards
You can draw and print phonics clip 🔡 cards. Each card must have a picture and three letters, one of the letters must be the➡️ start of the word.
Example: 👛👜💼🎒🧳 Bag = s n b. Your child must use the peg or the 🖋️ marker to mark which phonic grapheme 👂 is the start of the word in the 🖼️ picture.
🥳🎮GAME: Erase the sound
If your child likes to✍️ draw, then this game can be a lot👌 of🎉🥰 fun. Draw pictures on a whiteboard 🖋️📑 or chalkboard. Then write letters from the alphabet 🔠 on the top of the page and have your child 🤷♀️ identify and erase items in the 🖼️ picture that start with that letter.
Example: Draw a snowman ⛄with a hat for 🎩 “h,” eyes for 👀 “e”, buttons for 🔘 “b” and the nose is a carrot for 🥕 “c.” If your child is old enough, he or she can draw the picture and eraser letters once they see how it’s ✅💯done.
Know it's your turn to have some fun with Phonics! To learn the phonics sounds, head over to our YouTube channel for fun and interactive videos!