The phonics teaching method begins by teaching children individual phonemes. In order to progress in their reading ability, they are then shown how to blend these sounds and letters together, in order to process words. In some instances, children are expected to recognise whole words for their meaning; however in the phonics approach, children are taught to sound out words.

Blending is a technique that enables children to produce full words. They can start out by pronouncing individual sounds, but then progress to placing them together.  When teaching children this process, remember to start off easy with words such as “s-a-t”. You can then  progress to more difficult words as you see improvement in the child’s ability!

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Activity IDEA:

Cut out the phonemes on to pieces of card (you may need multiple copies of each phoneme).  Present these to your child and ask them to make words by putting the cards together. See how many they can make and track their progress each week. How long does it take them to make a 5 letter word?