What is phonics and how do I teach it? Phonics is the relationship between letters and their sounds. These sounds are blended together to form words. Phonics skills are the foundation of reading and writing. In this article, I will share some tips and resources on how to teach homeschool phonics successfully. Be sure to download the Free Printable to help teach phonics!
The first step to teaching homeschool phonics is letter sounds. Unifix Reading: Early Phonics Kit is a great place to start. The activity book has helpful teaching instructions with differentiated and multi-sensory activities. Use the color-coded Unifix CVC cubes along with the activity book and cards to reinforce the concepts. CVC stands for consonant-vowel-consonant. The activity book and cards cover each position of a CVC word.
To further reinforce beginning and ending sounds, use Beginning and Ending Sounds Clip Cards. The answers are marked with a star on the back, so you or your child can quickly check to see if the choice is correct. These clip cards are one of the fun and easy ways I teach the alphabet. Check out more here.
I had my child practice on this Phonics Dry Erase Set. While he worked on the beginning and ending sounds pages, he was also practicing spelling familiar words.
I like these CVC Dry Erase Cards because they are color-coded and erasable, plus my son loves using the Colorful Crayola® Take Note™ Dry-Erase Marker. We look at the picture and say the name, then my child figures out which sound is missing from the letters provided. If he makes a mistake, he grabs his Plush Googly Eye Primary Color Dry Erase Board Erasers to erase and try again.
The Unifix Reading: Early Phonics Kit workbook is extremely helpful in this process. The CVC section begins with word families. These are CVC words that have the same endings, such as, can, tan, fan, and ran. These makes learning multiple CVC words easier.
Once they have mastered a few CVC words, use the Tactile CVC Word Self-Checking Puzzles for more practice. They are learning how to decode or sound out a word. This is a crucial phonics skill. Continue to praise and encourage them as they sound out the word. If they are still stuck or getting frustrated, help them with an individual sound instead of the whole word.
My little guy loves magnets, so I gave him the CVC scramble page from our CVC, CVCC & CCVC Magnetic Activity Set. Investing in color-coded Rainbow Magnetic Letters is also a great way to have your child practice creating, writing, and sounding out CVC words.
I wanted to encourage my child to work on phonics activities independently, so I set up a phonics center. I included the Tactile CVC Word Self-Checking Puzzles, CVC Dry Erase Cards, Colorful Crayola® Take Note™ Dry-Erase Markers, Plush Googly Eye Primary Color Dry Erase Board Erasers, and Word Family Readers. The Word Family Readers are cute stories using words from the word families.
Speaking of sight words, what are sight words? Sight words are words that occur frequently in text and often do not follow the rules of the English language. A child's ability to read sight words is related to increased fluency and comprehension. These words are commonly taught in conjunction with phonics. To help you get started, I put together a list of simple activities for how to teach sight words at home here.
One of my favorite sight word activities is a simple sight word name and match game. I used these adorable and cheery Eureka® Sharp Bunch Cactus Bulletin Board Cutouts to write matching sight words on.
My kids enjoy using these Sequences & Stories Sticker Scenes to practice spelling and creating a sequential story. First, they pick a sticker scene and place the stickers onto the story page in order. Then, they decide which order the sticker words go in and place them onto the story page as well. This is a great resource that covers multiple skills. Before you know it, they will be writing stories with ease!
Consonant blends are two consonants that have individual sounds but are often found next to each other in words. We work on a few common CVCC (consonant-vowel-consonant-consonant) words in our The Unifix Reading: Early Phonics Kit workbook before graduating to the next Unifix reading kit. The Unifix Reading: Phonics Kit workbook teaches consonant blends and digraphs.
I wanted my son to have a good grasp of beginning and ending blends in words, so I had him practice with the CVC, CVCC & CCVC Magnetic Activity Set. First, he worked on unscrambling letters in CVCC and CCVC words. Next, he made rhyming words. Lastly, he identified and correctly spelled the CVCC and CCVC words for each image. These CVCC and CCVC magnetic activities provided multiple ways to practice beginning and ending blends. For more practice and a bit of fun, we play Pete the Cat™ Blends & Digraphs Game! I use the Phonics Dry Erase Set to practice writing consonant blends. He worked on the beginning and ending blends pages.
Digraphs are two letters that make one sound together, like sh, th, ch, or wh. Unlike consonant blends, these letters create a singular sound together. The first five lessons in the Unifix Reading: Phonics Kit focus on digraphs. The lessons use the word building cards along with the workbook. The word building cards are color-coded to align with specific lessons. There are 90 CVC cubes and 180 color-coded blend cubes for word building.
I found that teaching the magic "e" is the smoothest transition into teaching long vowels. My child is a pro at CVC words, so I asked him to spell the CVC words I said on our whiteboard using Rainbow Magnetic Letters. Then I told him about the first long vowel rule.
Short to long vowels are the first lessons for teaching long vowels in the Unifix Reading: Phonics Kit. We went over the lessons in the workbook together, and he completed the corresponding word building cards on his own. He was so proud that he understood and was able to create new words!
During our vowel team lessons, I had my son practice with these Vowel Team Clip Cards. The more cards he did, the more his understanding of vowel teams and confidence grew.
The Phonics Dry Erase Set has a few long vowel pages. My son looks forward to any reason he can use his Colorful Crayola® Take Note™ Dry-Erase Markers and Plush Googly Eye Primary Color Dry Erase Board Erasers.
Next, we look at r-controlled vowels. When a vowel is followed by the letter r in a syllable, the vowel is controlled by the r and makes a new sound. Examples: car, fern, bird, storm, and turn. The r is also referred to as Bossy 'R' because it changes the vowel's sound.
Unifix Reading: Phonics Kit is an excellent resource for teaching r-controlled vowels. To understand the r-controlled vowels better, my child needed to practice. The Bossy R Sorting Boxes offer just that! Worksheets are an easy way to practice a new concept. Download the Free Printable Bossy R Worksheet here. I put the worksheet in a Neon Top-Loading Dry Erase Pocket. Plus, as I said before, my son loves any reason to use his Colorful Crayola® Take Note™ Dry-Erase Markers and Plush Googly Eye Primary Color Dry Erase Board Erasers. Be sure to grab the free Bossy R PDF here.
The last tip I have for teaching homeschool phonics is reading. Reading a variety of books to and with your child is key to good phonics understanding.
My son and I enjoy reading Word Family Readers. Each reader has a fun story and focuses on specific word families. While reading these stories, my son is building his vocabulary and increasing his phonics understanding.
One way to work on reading comprehension is with these fun Reading Comprehension Clip Cards. These clip cards have simple sentences that use the first 100 Fry sight words and easy to sound out words. Another activity my son liked was the CVC, CVCC & CCVC Magnetic Activity Set sentences. He was putting several phonics skills to work with this activity.
Now, he is onto reading and writing more words with all of his phonics knowledge. Encourage your child to continue practicing their phonics skills. Before long they will be reading chapter books and writing silly stories! I hope you got some great information on how to teach homeschool phonics and feel empowered to take it on.
