Why Young Children Need Phonics
The ability to read is one of the most important skills acquired in the early years of a child’s life. Reading forms an intrinsic part of our lives, and whether you realise it or not, phonics is at the heart of how children learn to read. Once children have mastered the 26 alphabet letters sounds, they’re ready to use those building blocks to read words and simple sentences. The key to your child’s ability to read independently begins with strong phonics skills in the early years of school. So what is phonics exactly? And why do we, at Growing Up Gifted Education (GUG), place such an important emphasis on teaching it? Read on to find out all about that, and then some!
Simply put, phonics is a method for teaching English reading and writing to children. Letters stand for sounds in spoken language. If you think of words and sentences as a code, then when you learn to actually read, you are breaking that code. You’re matching letters to sounds so that you can sound out words. That’s de-coding, and it’s what phonics is all about.
For example, the letter t stands for the sound /t/. Your child can blend these sounds together — /t/ /ŏ/ /p/ — and read the word top.
Now when it is described in this way, it might sound (no pun intended) a bit complicated, but when applied through phonics, all of this is simple enough for a child to understand and apply, accelerating their understanding of the English language in general, along with other languages. The majority of words young kids come across are easily decodable, from simple words like top to more challenging ones like peach or raccoon.
Using phonics is hands-down the best method to teach kids to read and understand any language. This is well-supported by research: we know that systematic phonics instruction is better than any other approach when it comes to learning to read. Why is it so effective? Because phonics gives your child the tools to read almost every word he or she comes across. And that’s really powerful.
Learning phonics will have a big payoff for your child. The more success your child has using phonics to read words, the more capable and confident he or she will feel about reading. Your child will want to have that feeling of success again and again, so it’s great motivation to keep at it when reading gets tougher.
Phonics is best taught systematically, starting with the easiest elements and working up to more challenging ones. Learning to read is exciting, but it can also be challenging. There’s a lot of trial and error, and sometimes you’ll see your child struggle. This is completely normal. With the right instruction and lots of practice and encouragement, your child will master these skills. You’ll see him or her reading words correctly and without a lot of effort—even the hard ones. Eventually, kids will be able to “decode” words quickly and fluently by hearing, grasping, and manipulating the sounds of words with consistent practice.
How It’s Easier With GUG Smart Phonics™
Here is where GUG stands out with our approach to teaching phonics! Our GUG Smart Phonics approach is “play-based” which makes us different, and accounts for our success all these years. “Play-based” makes phonics appropriate for very youngchildren including babies and toddlers.
At the same time, we introduce Smart Phonics™ strategies with an exclusive series of GUG phonics readers and activity books that have proven to help young children grow into confident early readers and writers. More than 15,000 preschoolers have benefited from our multiple award-winning curriculum and proceeded to excel in primary school and beyond!
Our “play-based” phonics method has 2 unique features:
- We teach hand signals and body movements to learn phonics. In fact, science has proven that information is locked into memory faster and better through movement! There are various reasons why this is so:
- Physical activity activates the brain. Staying active improves cognitive function, thus children who are active throughout the day will experience improved academic performance.
- Gestures are helpful to learning. The use of gestures can help children solidify information in their memory as they associate that gesture with a specific piece of information.
- Brain connections. Moving can help the two halves of the brain communicate, which can aid learning and allow children to retain information much more effectively.
- Improved focus. Young children who are encouraged to move around throughout the day find it easier to focus on the lessons with movement, and also during the intervals when they have to sit still and focus.
- Children can process information more effectively by learning through a multi- sensorial approach. In other words, if we present information to students visually, verbally and kinesthetically, students will better absorb the information through these varied techniques.
- Phonics is taught in a fun, multi-sensorial way. Letter sounds are learned via visual cues (like pictures and puppets), auditory (such as stories and songs), touch (3D or concrete things) and kinesthetically (such as music & movement, drama and action rhymes).
These 2 points will be elaborated further in upcoming articles. You may subscribe to our newsletter (at the bottom of this page) so you don’t miss out on them!
Learning phonics and beginning to read are huge milestones, and so much learning is packed into just a few years. It’s an exciting time for both children and parents alike! With the right kind of phonics instruction, your child will be sure to get off to a great start and become a confident speller and skilled reader. 🙂
If you would like to find out more about Smart Phonics and how your child can benefit from our preschool & enrichment programmes, as well as arrange for a school tour and introduction – don’t hesitate to contact us!
Growing Up Gifted is a leading preschool and education provider in Singapore, offering a range of full-day, half-day and enrichment programmes for all children 10 months to 8 years old.
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