Phonics lessons for kindergarten should give kids a strong decoding foundation. Decoding skills allow kids to sound out words. When a child can read words sound-by-sound, he can read a broad range of English text.
Most English words are phonetic to some degree. Even words like “preamble” are phonetically regular because “pre” and “ble” have consistent pronunciations. Also, “bear,” often cited for its irregular spelling, still has phonetic components: the /b/ and /r/ are regular. In fact, only a small percentage of English words are irregular.
“Surprisingly, approximately only four percent of all English words in print defy explanation and are truly irregular” (Louisa Moats, Carol Tolman, from Reading Rockets).
Thus, if you teach a child to decode, you give him the tools to read nearly any word. In phonics lessons for kindergarten, work on giving your student a strong decoding foundation so he becomes a confident reader.
Phonics lessons for kindergarten
For a printable pdf sample phonics lesson for kindergarten see:
Beginning phonics lessons include the following activities:
- Letter sound knowledge
- Explicitly introduce new phonics sound
- Phonics flashcards
- Teaching kids that sight words require a sound tweak
- Phonemic awareness activities
- Letter switch out activity
- Decontextualized word lists
- Spelling
Some phonics curricular include more activities, but the above are important for reading success.
For more details on each activity, see below.
Our printable phonics books help kids learn to read with a gradual, step-by-step approach.
For a printable pdf sample phonics lesson for kindergarten see:Lesson for Kindergarten PDF
Letter sound knowledge
Kids should master letter sounds in kindergarten. Introduce 2-4 letter sounds at a time. Do NOT teach letter names. Contrary to popular belief, letter names do not facilitate reading. Only letter sounds crack the code. For example, letter names “dee-oh-jee” do not equate to dog. However, letter sounds “d-oooo-g” do sound out dog. Letter sounds crack the code. Letter names DO NOT.
Continuous versus stop sounds
Make sure your student holds continuous sounds and clips stop sounds. Continuous sounds are sounds you can hold for a long time without adding an “uh.” For example, continuous sounds include: a, e, f, I, l, m, n, o, r, s, u, v, z. You can hold these sounds for a few seconds without adding any additional sounds. Continuous sounds are important. They help beginning readers blend sounds. For example, kids may have an easier time sounding out “Ssss-aaaa-mmmm” than “dig,” because “Sam” is composed of continuous sounds.
In contrast, stop sounds need to be clipped so your student does not add an “uh.” Make sure you and your student say stop sounds quickly. Clip off that “uh” you’re tempted to add. Some stop sounds include: b, c, d, g, j, k, p, q, t, y. If you add an “uh” to stop sounds, the extra “uh” will make decoding difficult for your beginner. She’ll say “duh-iii-guh” for dig. Thus, she may read “dug” for “dig.” Make sure your student clips stop sounds in every activity.
Teach one phonics sound per letter
Teach one sound per letter. For example, teach “c” says /c/ as in cat. Do not say that c can say /s/ and is sometimes silent and… etc. In the beginning, teach only one sound per letter.
Kids need to rote memorize letter sounds. You can use mnemonics to help your student. For example, you can teach that m says “mmmm” as in monkey or c says “c” as in cat.
Include letter tracing activities in your letter sound lessons. Kids need to learn that “d” and “b” are different. They need to differentiate “m” and “w.” Letter tracing activities can help kids learn the subtle differences between letter shapes.
Explicitly introduce new phonics sound
If your student is ready, introduce a new phonics sound. Maybe your student needs to learn short e. Write a short e sentence on the board like:
The hen set an egg in the nest.
Tell your student that “e” says /e/ as in hen, set, egg and nest. Turn your new sound “e” into a phonics flashcard.
Phonics flashcards
Kids need to rote memorize phonics sounds. They need to know that “ai” says /ai/ as in sail. They need to know “e_” says /e/ as in hen. Make a flashcard for each kindergarten phonics sound. Have your student say each phonics every lesson. Mix up the cards so your student does not memorize their order. Here are the phonics sounds list for kindergarten:
Letter Sounds
b as in bat
c as in cat
d as in dog
f as in frog
g as in goat
h as in hat
j as in jaguar
k as in kangaroo
l as in lion
m as in monkey
n as in nest
p as in panda
q as in queen
r as in rhinoceros
s as in snow
t as in turtle
v as in violin
w as in wing
x as in fox
y as in yak
z as in zebra
Short Vowels
Short Vowels
Reading Elephant Sets 1-5 help kids practice short vowel sounds.
a_ as in apple (ex. hat, sat)
e_ as in elephant (ex. hen, pet)
i_ as in igloo (ex. sit, pig)
o_ as in octopus (ex. dog, pop)
u_ as in up (ex. cup, bug)
Consonant Digraphs
Reading Elephant Set 6 allows kids to practice consonant digraphs.
sh as in ship
th as in math
th as in then
ch as in chop
_tch as in match
_ck as in back
_ng as in long
_ing as in king
_ang as in sang
wh_ as in when
_ink as in pink
_ank as in tank
qu as in quick
Consonant blends
Reading Elephant Set 7 allows kids to practice consonant blends.
Consonant blends are 2 or 3 letter sounds in a row. For example, the “fl” in “flop” is a consonant blend. The “br” in “brick” is a consonant blend. Don’t teach kids to memorize consonant blends: they are decodable. Kids should read consonant blends sound-by-sound. If you teach consonant blends as phonics flashcards it may not harm their learning process, but it’s not necessary; in fact, unnecessary consonant blends flashcards will just give your student more to memorize. Instead, focus only on teaching them tr as in truck and dr as in drop. “Tr” and “dr” require a sound change. Otherwise, consonant blends do not require memorization.
Silent e
Reading Elephant Set 8 allows kids to practice silent e.
a_e as in make
e_e as in Pete
i_e as in kite
o_e as in hope
u_e as in use
u_e as in duke
Teaching kids that sight words require a sound tweak
Sight words break the phonetic code in some way. Kids need to memorize how to spell sight words, because they can’t sound them out. Words like “their” and “could” are sight words.
Words like “play” and “happy” are often found on sight word lists. However, these words are totally phonetic. Kids should not memorize phonetic words: they should decode them.
Some more sample sight words include “would” “the” and “they.” These are words that have something irregular about them. For example, the “oul” in “would” is irregular, the “e” in “the” is irregular and the “ey” in “they” is irregular.
Since kindergartners need to learn to spell sight words, you should include sight word flashcards in your lessons. Cover them up with your hand. Have your student try to spell them from memory. Then reveal the word to help your student make any corrections.
Phonemic awareness activities
Phonemic awareness (PA) activities are especially important for kindergartners. Letter sound knowledge and phonemic awareness abilities are the greatest predictors of reading success. Thus, do not leave PA activities out of your phonics lessons for kindergarten.
Phonemic awareness is the ability to segment, blend and manipulate sounds. For example, a phonemically aware person can segment “grass” into 4 sounds: “g-rrr-aaa-ssss.” In addition, a phonemically aware person can identify that although “shrill” has 6 letters, it only has 4 sounds: “sh-rrr-iii-lll.” Children need to be taught PA. It is not an innate skill. We all develop phonemic awareness as we become literate.
Teachers should explicitly teach phonemic awareness.
How do you teach PA? Teachers can use sound games to teach kids to separate and blend sounds. For example, you can ask your student to say the sounds in “hat” in order. Their response should be “h-aaaa-t.” Notice that your student should clip the stop sounds “h” and “t” and hold the continuous sound “aaaa.” In addition, you can ask your student to blend sounds. For example, you can ask your student to blend the sounds in “b-aaaa-t” to which they should respond “bat!”
Letter switch out activity
The letter switch out activity can help kids see that changing one letter changes the entire meaning of the word. kids can read words like: mat, sat, sap, tap, tip, top. This word list helps kids understand the importance of sounding out words. With just one letter change, the whole word changes.
Decontextualized word lists
Decontextualized word lists are an important part of phonics lessons for kindergarten. What is a decontextualized word list? It’s just a list of 6-20 words for the child to read sound-by-sound. The list should be at the child’s level. In the beginning, the student will read a list of 6 words like: 1. sat 2. ham 3. lap 4. gap 5. Dan 6. yak
Later, as the kindergartner learns more phonics sounds, she can read a longer list like:
bin
tap
bell
fed
lab
pod
Ben
hiss
puff
dip
rug
met
cap
tug
pup
tell
jam
beg
run
yell
Decontextualized word lists are a very important part of phonics lessons for kindergarten. They help kindergarteners practice new phonics sounds. They also help students review old phonics sounds so they don’t forget them. In addition, decontextualized word lists take all the reading crutches away that instill bad habits, including looking at pictures, guessing based on context, and using repetitive language to guess. Thus, decontextualized word lists build a solid decoding foundation.
Spelling
Phonics lessons for kindergarten should include spelling. Have your student spell about 5 phonetic words, 2 sight words and a sentence. Make sure your student doesn’t memorize how to spell the phonetic words. She should write sound-by-sound. Here’s a good sample spelling list for kindergarten: 1. Mat 2. Hen 3. Bag 4. Him 5. Cup. 5. They 6. The 7. They ran to the red mat. ReadingElephant.com offers 120+ step-by-step printable learn to read books.
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Sample phonics lessons for kindergarten
Explicitly introduce new phonics sound
Introduce a new phonics sound if your student is ready. For example, if your student needs to learn short e, write a short e sentence down like: The hen set an egg in the nest. Say “e” says “eeeee” as in heeeen hen.” Make an “e” phonics flashcard to review daily.
Phonics flashcards
Review all phonics sounds your student is working on, including the new phonics sound. If your student is strong in certain kindergarten phonics sounds, take them out of the pile. However, never take short vowels a, e, i, o , u out of the pile. Here’s a sample phonics flashcard list for kindergarten:
a, b, m, i, o, n, s, u, f, I, e, x, y, z.
Teaching kids that sight words require a sound tweak
Create the following flashcards. Ask the student to sound them out and make a sound tweak. Then, cover the word and have your student spell the sight word out loud (no writing).
are, said, you, have, there, again, some
Phonemic awareness activities
Tell me the first sound in: cat, hen, jump, yell, rut, pup, dent, limp, pen, tip
I say the word. You say the sounds slowly and in order: nip, wed, Rob, log, tub, hut, yet
Letter switch out activity
Read the following words sound-by-sound: mat, sat, sap, tap, tip, top
Decontextualized word lists
Read the following 20 words sound-by-sound. Then, blend the sounds to say the word.
1. job 2. fell 3. gap 4. Ben 5. bin 6. sum 7. nab 8. vet 9. cub 10. bid 11. set 12. tad 13. puff 14. mat 15. nod 16. loss 17. kiss 18. kid 19. off 20. ten
Spelling
Spell the following words sound-by-sound. “The” “into” and “some” are sight words: spell the sight words from memory.
1. buzz 2. rug 3. fed 4. map 5. hop 6. could 7. The dog ran into some mud.
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