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Teaching reading strategies that combine phonics activities and comprehension is a method that has been proven successful

Many experts agree that effective reading strategies focus on phonics activities, but phonics lessons alone are not enough to teach children how to read. Reading strategies that incorporate phonics activities with a reading comprehension program are much more effective. More than 180 research studies have shown that reading strategies that use phonics instruction are the best way to teach children how to read. It is a shock to realize that over 80% of schools are not using phonics lessons; instead- they are teaching using the “whole word” approach. This approach teaches children to read based on memorization and guessing, and while it is possible for children to learn in this manner, it’s proven that phonics is more efficient.

The English language is made up of 44 different sounds, making it a “phonetic” language as opposed to Japanese and Chinese, which are considered picture based languages. While there are only 44 different sounds in the English language, there are over 1 million words. Doesn’t it make sense to use reading strategies that encourage the learning of the 44 different sounds rather than the memorization of over 1 million words? Phonics activities focus on teaching children to read the same way the learned to talk, by imitating sounds. Once a child can recognize sounds and connect them to the appropriate letter, they can be taught to combine these sounds and letters to create words in daily phonics lessons.

There are currently many products available on the market that introduce reading strategies that focus on phonics activities, including “Hooked on Phonics”, “Make Reading Fun”, and “Frontline Phonics”. Using highly recommended products like these during your phonics lessons will assist you in making the connection between phonics and reading comprehension.