Michelle Susborne

Over the years the use of phonics books has been a very essential way to help to teach children to read.  They use many different styles to reach their young audiences.  Let’s discuss more about phonics books and how they help to teach people to read.

Phonics books use a method to help teach English speaking people how to read and write in that language.  Essentially phonics is a way to connect the sounds of a spoken word or phrase with letters or groups of letters to ultimately teach them how to blend the sounds of those letters to approximate the way an unknown word sounds.

Children often begin to learn to read around age 5 or 6.  When using phonics, the student needs to learn how connect letter patterns to the sounds they represent.  Phonics books often do a great job of this by showing the student a picture of something they will learn to associate with the sounds of designated letters of groups of letters.

In order to engage the young student, the books are often created with full, colorful and interesting characters and scenes.  The books can be used along with an instructor or adult (parent, etc.) and some can be used by the child alone.

Phonics books can help a child to understand about vowels and how they sound.  For example they can learn what the letter should sound like depending how it is used in a given word.  For example they can learn the short vowel sound of a by using it in the word cat.  A child will see a picture of a cat and then learn to associate the short a sound with it.

Or they can learn the long vowel a sound by associating it with the word ate.  The use of phrases and pictures does a great deal to help a child learn to associate letters or groups of letters to a particular sound.

There are many other types of letter groupings which make certain kinds of sounds.  As the lessons progress, the student can learn to associate these groupings properly.  For example the letter grouping ch is associated with a certain sound.  Or perhaps the letters th.

There are many kinds of letter groupings along with many kinds of sounds associated with them.  Over time the phonics books can illustrate certain pictures along with the letter groupings to get the child to mimic the desired sound.

As the child progresses, he/she can learn to read an entire word by recognizing letters or groups of letters in the word to the sound which is associated with it.  In this way a student can read an entirely new word.

Some of the phonics books blend the strict learning of phonics along with the creation of a story.  This helps to keep the learning interesting and enjoyable.  And it gives the child a great deal of satisfaction in knowing that they can actually read a story.

It can be helpful as a parent to read along with your child and help them with some of the phases or words they may have trouble with.  It can be a very enjoyable and gratifying experience for both child and parent.  And it will help your child to progress in their learning and enjoyment and effectiveness from reading and writing.