What are Phonics Skills?

Phonics skills refer to the ability to understand and use the relationship between letters and sounds in a language. Phonics is a method of teaching reading by helping learners recognize the connection between written symbols (letters or groups of letters) and their associated sounds (phonemes).

Systematic, explicit phonics instruction is the most effective method of teaching reading to k-2 students, including dyslexic children. Systematic means kids learn phonics sounds one at a time or gradually with constant review. For example, a child might learn short a words like cat, sat, ban and read a sentence like: The cat sat at the mat. Next, the child might learn short i words like bit, fin and rip and read a sentence like: Tim the cat ran to Jim the bat. This one phonics sound at a time is crucial to effective phonics instruction.

Explicit means the teacher directly states the letter-sound correlations, that way the child never has to guess at the letter units. For example, a teacher might say, “ai” says /ai/ as in train. That way, the students never have to guess at the “ai” phonics unit.

Key phonics skills include:

1. Alphabet Sound Recognition: Recognizing the individual sounds (phonemes) that correspond to specific letters. Kids need to recognize alphabet sounds, including the short vowels: a as in bat, i as in bin, o as in hop, e as in met and u as in cup. (Some good and common mnemonics for short vowels include: a_ as in apple, i_ as in igloo, o_ as in octopus, e_ as in elephant and u_ as in umbrella.
2. Phonics Unit Recognition: There are 44 phonemes in English. Kids need to learn all of them explicitly and systematically. Some phonics units include “ee” as in bee, “oa” as in “boat,” “_tch” as in fetch, and “ar” as in car.
3. Blending: Combining individual sounds to form words. For example, blending the sounds of “c,” “a,” and “t” to make “cat.” Beginners should elongate continuous sounds (or sounds you can hold for a long time without distortion like aaaaa as in apple or mmmm as in mat). Continuous sounds are key to unlocking words in kindergarten. For example, a beginner can sound out “Sam” as “SSSSaaaammmm… Sam.”
4. Segmenting: Breaking down words into their individual sounds. For instance, separating the sounds in the word “dog” into “d,” “o,” and “g.” Segmenting is a crucial skill for spelling. So often schools have kids memorize long lists of spelling words. That’s the wrong approach. Kids should spell words sound-by-sound. This, however, requires both phonics knowledge and segmenting skills. For example, a child can segment train as “t-r-ai-n” or short as “sh-or-t.”
5. Decoding: Using knowledge of letter-sound relationships to sound out unfamiliar words. When a child can decode, he can unlock the word using phonics knowledge.
6. Sight Word Recognition: Identifying common words, which is also an important part of developing fluency. Children still need to decode sight words, because even though sight words break the phonetic rules in some way, they also contain some phonics. For example, the “th” in the, “s” and “m” in some and “c” and “d” in could are regular. Kids should practice reading and spelling sight words.
7. Phoneme Manipulation: Changing, adding, or removing sounds to make new words, such as changing “bat” to “hat” by substituting the initial sound.

Phonics is an essential foundation for reading accurately and fluently.

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