How to Practice Phonics With Kids at Home

If you're the parent of a beginning reader, chances are you're hearing a lot about phonics. Here's what you need to know about how your child will learn phonics — and how you can help practice phonics at home.

What Is Phonics and Why is it Important?

Phonics is knowing that sounds and letters have a relationship. In other words, it is the link between what we say and what we can read and write. Phonics offers beginning readers the tools they need to sound out written words. For example, kids learn that the letter D has the sound of /d/ as in doll. Down the road, they'll learn how to combine letter sounds to make words like dog. Proficient reading requires the readers to be able to decode or sound out words.

In preschool and the beginning of kindergarten, the beginner reading curriculum is usually focused on phonological (language sound) awareness and learning to recognize letters (upper and lowercase) and learning the sound associated with each letter. This focus on sound and letter awareness sets children up for success in learning phonics skills. Usually, around halfway through kindergarten, children move on to blending simple words and begin to work toward building automaticity in word recognition, which is when it becomes quick and easy to recognize words.

Plus, check out these 25 books every kid should read before starting kindergarten.

Research suggests that the most effective phonics instruction is systematic, sequential, and explicit. Schools often give preschoolers plenty of practice before moving on. Your child will read short, simple books containing the particular letter sounds or words they're working on. You can help them practice by providing similar books at home, many of which are based on kids' favorite characters, like the Peppa Pig Phonics Book Set.

How Can You Practice Phonics at Home?

As kids are developing the skills to connect letters and letter combinations with the sounds they make, families can build their capabilities by practicing a few of the following:

• Get to know the letters. When introducing letters, state the letter, the sound it makes and a word that starts with that letter. “This is letter H. /h/ Hat.” This will allow kids to learn to recognize, pronounce, and identify words beginning with that letter.
• Play “initial sounds” games. Say a word and stretch it out. Use the example of the word hat. Slowly say, “/h/ ă /t/” Ask them, “What’s the first sound you hear?” Reinforce the sound with examples of other words that begin with H. “Horse. Home. Happy.”
• Try rhyming games. Rhyming games can be a fun way for kids to think about the way a word sounds and then another word that has a similar sound. If you’re reading a book together (Julia Donaldson books are great for this), read through one page and pause. Ask your reader if they noticed any words that rhymed on the page. Or at the dinner table, pick a wordstart out by saying a few words (bug, jug) and go around and ask everyone at the table to come up with a word that rhymes with them. You can get the whole family in on the fun. If your child is stuck, you can suggest a new initial sound — “Try putting /l/ before “ug”.
• Sing. Try adding funny words to well-known songs, poems, or even nursey rhymes to re-emphasize how fun it can be to rhyme. “Mary had a little lamb, little clam, little jam.”
• Talk, talk, talk. Talk to your child as much as possible as you’re going about your day. Point out and name things in their environment — whether you’re at the park or the grocery store. All of this will build vocabulary and help create connections between sounds, words, and objects.
• Look for words everywhere. As you're building a child's awareness of sound and language, make sure you look together at words in print. Whether it's on the back of a cereal box, in a book, or on a street sign, seeing words, breaking them apart, and connecting them to sounds is foundational to their ability to read. 

What Are More Ways to Reinforce Phonics Learning at Home?

• Team up with their teacher. Ask how you can highlight phonics and reading outside of class, and share any concerns you have. 
• Read aloud. Choose books on topics that excite your child (get great suggestions from our book lists), and read with gusto, using different voices for each character. Allow your child to sit next to you as you read so that they can see the words as they are read.
• Boost comprehension. Ask questions like, "What do you think will happen next?" or "What did he mean by that?" Here are more great questions to ask during story time.
• Revisit familiar books. It's okay if your child wants to re-read favorite books from earlier years. In fact, it's actually beneficial!
• Listen to your child read daily. If your child stumbles on a word, encourage them to sound it out. But if they still can't get it, provide the word so they don't get discouraged. Be sure to praise them for their efforts.
• Spread the joy. Show your child how much you value reading by having plenty of books and magazines around the house. You'll practice phonics as well as cultivate a lifelong love of reading.
• Play word games once your child has learned their letters and sounds. One of the best is an activity called word ladders or word chains. In a word ladder your child starts with a word, say “dog,” and then makes a series of new words by changing, adding, or subtracting letters. For example dog > dot > tot > cot > cat. Search for Daily Word Ladders K-1 and 1-2 for hundreds of word ladders you can try with your child.

Don’t Forget Reading Fluency

Like phonics, reading fluency is essential for success in reading. Fluent readers can read a text smoothly without hesitation and with good expression.

An easy way to develop fluency with young readers is to have them learn a short poem or rhyme. Print it out so your child can see it clearly. Then go through the process of “I read, we read, you read.” Read the rhyme to the child several times while your child follows along. Next, invite them to read with you two or three times. Then, your child should be able to read it to you on their own. Be sure to praise your child for their good efforts. As a final step, you can direct your child’s attention to the phonics elements of certain words or word parts within the rhyme.

Tried at home three or four times a week, research has shown this “Fast Start for Early Readers” activity can accelerate children’s growth in reading.

Find more expert-approved books, tips, and resources to help strengthen your preschooler's skills in our guide to getting ready for kindergarten. Plus, check out these 100 books under $5 that will inspire a love of reading in kids of all ages.

Shop these great phonics box sets below to get started! You can find all books and activities at The Scholastic Store.  

This article was reviewed by Timothy Rasinski, Ph.D.

Timothy Rasinski is professor emeritus of literacy education at Kent State University where he was director of its award-winning reading clinic. He held the Rebecca Tolle and Burton W. Gorman Endowed Chair in Educational Leadership and was a Presidential Scholar at KSU. Tim has written over 250 articles and has authored, co-authored or edited over 50 books or curriculum programs on reading education. He is author of the best-selling books on reading fluency The Fluent Reader and The Megabook of Fluency. Tim’s scholarly interests include reading fluency and word study, reading in the elementary and middle grades, and readers who struggle. His research on reading has been cited by the National Reading Panel and has been published in journals such as Reading Research Quarterly, The Reading Teacher, Reading Psychology, and the Journal of Educational Research. Tim is the first author of the fluency chapter for the Handbook of Reading Research, Volume IV.

Tim served a three-year term on the Board of Directors of the International Reading Association and was co-editor of The Reading Teacher, the world's most widely read journal of literacy education. In 2010 Tim was elected to the International Reading Hall of Fame and he is also the 2020 recipient of the William S. Gray Citation of Merit from the International Literacy Association. In 2021 and 2023, Tim was identified in a Stanford University study as being among the top 2 percent of scientists in the world. 

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