If you're the parent of a beginning reader, chances are you're hearing a lot about phonics. Here's what you need to know about how your child will learn phonics and how you can teach phonics at home:
What exactly is phonics?
Phonics is knowing that sounds and letters have a relationship — it's that simple, and that complex. It is the link between what we say and what we can read and write. Phonics offers your beginning reader the strategies she needs to sound out words. For example, she learns that the letter D has the sound of "d" as in "doll." Then she learns how to blend letter sounds together to make words like dog.