Supporting

This guide will help you understand what phonics means and how you can support your child's phonetic awareness.

What is phonics?

The word ‘phonics’ means understanding the sound that relates to the written letter. When teaching phonics, we teach children to learn each letter of the alphabet by its sound, not its name. For example, the letter ‘a’ should be sounded out as in ‘ant’ not as in ‘aim’. Phonics teaches children to be able to listen carefully and identify the sounds that make up each word. This prepares children to learn to read and spell words. Your child will learn phonics when they go to school, however there are lots of ways you can start supporting their phonetic awareness from an early age.

Listening comes first

The foundations of being able to read and write lie in the development of good listening skills. Before children can hear the difference between letter sounds, they must be able to hear the difference between other sounds, for example environmental sounds, sounds of instruments and voice sounds. Talk about sounds you hear around you for example, soft, loud, quick, long, high, low. Encourage your child to tell you what they can hear for example when walking to nursery or while in the bath. This helps your child develop good listening skills.

A love of literacy

Enjoying and sharing books helps your child to see that reading has a purpose and motivates them to value reading. Point to words as you read them and as your child starts to recognise letters, point out familiar letters on the page.

Model writing

Make sure your child sees you writing so that they understand that print carries meaning and that writing has a purpose.

Rhyme time

Being able to hear rhyming words is an important skill that helps children when they are learning to distinguish between letter sounds. Share lots of rhymes, songs and rhyming stories with your child, pausing to allow them to finish the rhyming string, for example “The mouse took a stroll through the deep dark wood. A fox saw the mouse and the mouse looked.........”

Sound out words

Sound out your child's name when asking them to do something; “B-e-n, it’s time for your bath!” Sound out words as you write them, for example “I am going to write ‘apple’ on my shopping list. What sound does ‘apple’ start with?” Use lower case letters when writing together, talk about when you would use a capital letter for example at the beginning of a name or at the beginning of a sentence.

Alliteration

Point out alliteration (when words start with the same sounds) for example “Ben, would you like a banana? Ben and banana – they start with the same sound!”

The best way to help your child's developing listening and phonetic skills is through play and in everyday experiences. Your UP app has a wide variety of play based experiences that support their phonic awareness, from the foundation skills of good listening to blending and segmenting letter sounds.