Incorporating Phonics into your Everyday Life at Home with Ease

phonics games Mar 27, 2024

As I age, I often reflect on life experiences from my past, some of which I recall without any fuzzy patches, and others I just know that I did, but no details remain. Learning to read is one of those things. I honestly thought I was just born with the ability to read. Actually, I thought everyone was born this way. It was a natural human ability that occurred for everyone around ages 5 to 7.

Do you have the same recollection that you were born that way?

Were you a person who felt like everyone around you was born that way and for some reason you weren't?

Now that I have learned so much about how our brains actually learn language, I am saddened to think about all of the people over the centuries who felt as though they were not good enough. The memory of reading for them is one of confusion, struggles, and pain. Well, the cat is out of the bag now because more people are educated on how to truly teach all learners language using the Orton Gillingham science of reading methods. Louisa Moats, an expert in literacy and someone that I have learned a lot from by reading her books during my Orton Gillingham training, said, “Parents can significantly accelerate their child's reading development by teaching them the sounds of letters, also known as phonics in a systematic way. This is the single most important thing parents can do to help their children become successful readers.” The single most important thing you can do, WOW, that is huge in my opinion!

The Lack of Phonics

Most parents have been encouraged by pediatricians, educators, and others to read to their children, but as a parent, I don't recall ever being advised to teach them phonics in a systematic way. Of course, taking on this component of literacy is not as easy as picking up a book and reading aloud. Ready to learn an easy realistic way to make this impactful change in your child’s life so that one day, when they think back on how they learned to read, they will remember it as if it just happened instead of it just happened for everyone else around me but I was different and struggled?

The Power of Phonics

I know what you are probably thinking. I don't know how to teach - I am not trained for this but I am asking you to trust me on this one. If you give me less than ten minutes of your time, I will equip you with the tools and knowledge needed to support your student’s phonics growth.

In 2018, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended incorporating phonics activities into daily routines to stimulate language development and early literacy. Unfortunately, as a classroom educator I have witnessed first hand that this does not always occur in every classroom, especially not on a daily basis, AND if it is occurring daily in the classroom it still may not be enough to support your learner, there just isn’t enough time in the school day. In 2014, a research study was published in the Journal of Educational Psychology that showed a child’s reading achievement was stronger when phonics activities were done at home.

Practical Steps to Start Phonics in your Home

Grab a pencil and paper so you can jot down the 4 steps that will have you teaching your child the sounds of letters almost as fast as the time it takes you to grab a book off the bookshelf and read to your child. Or make your life easier and email me at [email protected] for a copy of my 4 steps on How to Teach Phonics at Home.

First you need to have a plan on what phonics skills you want/need to teach. There is not a one size fits all when it comes to the plan rather you will need to take some things into consideration to help you create your individualized plan. If you need more direction on where to start send me an email at [email protected] and I will be more than happy to send you phonics plans for your student.
Once you have a plan the second step is to make word cards.

Word cards are my golden ticket because they are fast, easy to make, AND versatile. Essentially a word card is a piece of paper or index card with a single word on it. The word has the phonics skill that you are practicing.

Steps to Create Customized Word Cards

To make your own word cards follow these 4 steps.

a) Type “words with ____” in the browser search field

b) Find and select the result that takes you to the website www.thefreedictionary.com. If you type this website address directly into the browser you will not get the best word list to make your word cards

c) Once you have opened the freedictionary.com result link you will see your phonics skill listed in the website’s search field. From here you can adjust the search results based on where you want your phonics skill to be in the words. You can select starts with, ends with or contains. You can also easily limit the amount of scrolling on the results page by selected how many letters you want in your words.

d) Your final step is to either type the words using a 30+ font size OR write them out on index cards. If you choose to type them you will need to print and cut them into individual cards AND now you are ready for game time!

Now it is time to use your phonics word cards to help your student practice reading with the phonics skill. This is where the versatility of word cards comes in and makes phonics as easy as reading a book with your little learner. Instead of grabbing a book, grab your student’s favorite game (board game, sports game, card game, etc.). You will play using the normal game rules the only change will be before each player’s turn they will pick a word card, read the word, and circle or point to where the phonics skill is in the word. It is that simple. You can use these word games more than once and change up the game as your student desires.

The final piece to implementing phonics into your home is using the same word cards but turning the reading component into a spelling component. For this type of phonics practice the person whose turn it is NOT picks a card and reads it to the person whose turn it is and before that person gets to do their game move they must spell the word and circle or point to where the phonics skill is in the word.