As children grow, they start making friends. One such friend that we as parents always want our kids to have are – Books! For young kids to start reading, they need to understand and use the relationship between letters and sounds to read words. Phonics requires knowledge of letter recognition, sound recognition, and their associations. This means that children must recognize letters in words, and then produce their corresponding sounds to read words. Fortunately, there are fun activities that you can do with your child to promote phonics! Today, we will here go through such fun and easy activities that can be done at home to help you kids learn phonics.
FLASHCARDS – Create this set of 26 flashcards at home for each of the alphabets. Introduce your child to each of the letters and the sound associated with it. Choose colourful cards to make these and infact take your child’s help in creating them. On one side write the alphabet and on the other side the sound associated with it. Take the child through all of them and then randomly so that the child is aware.
I-SPY GAME – In the game “I spy” you pick something that you see and don’t tell the child what it is. The child has to guess what you see. Here is how you can use “I Spy” to teach letter sounds (phonics) – Let’s say you see a book in the room: You can say: I spy something that starts with the letterB or I spy something that ends with the letter After your child guesses what “you spy” have them tell you the sound the letter makes. If your child cannot guess what “you spy” or does not know the letter sound, provide them with assistance. You can also do the same thing using letter sounds. For example, if you see a book, you can say “I spy something that starts with (make the sound for b)” or “I spy something that ends with (make the sound for k). After your child finds the object, have them tell you what the first letter (or last letter) of the object is. Alternate turns with your child. First you spy, then they spy, or vice versa.
HOP-SKIP-JUMP – For children who have a lot of energy, turn a phonics lesson into a movement activity. Tape four letters onto the wall. Call out a letter sound and tell your child to run to the letter that makes that sound, touch it and run back. Spice it up. Here are some examples:
- Hop to the letter that makes the sound
- Skip to the letter that makes the sound
- Tip Toe to the letter that makes the sound
All this and lot many more creative ways to create simple activities at home and teach you little one phonics.
— Roopa Hoonjan —
Image : Jolly Learning