For Parents

Help your child strengthen their literacy skills at any stage of development.

Your family plays a big role in helping your child learn to read and write. With the right phonics activities at home, you can support your child’s literacy development and academic success. The more you understand how and why phonics instruction works, the better you can facilitate effective and meaningful learning experiences with your family. 

To help your child practice phonics at home, read our insights for parents below! You can also browse our phonics program reviews for more.

Phonics Education for Families

Making Phonics Stick: Help Kids Learn Essential Literacy Skills 

Sometimes, it seems like no matter how much you practice with your child or...

fun phonics games for kids

Fun Phonics Games for Kids: Activities to Try at Home 

Kids need to master basic phonics skills before they can become proficient readers. While...

learn to reach decoding in reading for kids

Methods of Effective Decoding in Reading

When children are learning to read, they must be taught how to “sound out”...

what is phonics?

What is Phonics? An Introduction for Parents and Educators

Anyone who can read and write in an alphabetical language has mastered an important...

Progress Monitoring in Phonics: What Parents Should Be Asking Schools

Progress Monitoring in Phonics: What Parents Should Be Asking Schools

Most parents only hear about reading problems when it’s already late in the game. A vague comment at a parent-teacher conference, a worrying score on a state test, a teacher…

Small Group Phonics Instruction: How to Make It Work

Small Group Phonics Instruction: How to Make It Work

Walk into any effective elementary classroom during literacy time, and you’ll likely see something that looks a bit like organized chaos. A teacher works intently with four students at a…

What a Good Phonics Screener Actually Measures

What a Good Phonics Screener Actually Measures

If your child’s school sent home a note about an upcoming “phonics screener,” you might have felt a flash of worry. Is it a test? Will my child pass or…

Red Flags vs. Normal Variation: How to Tell If Your Child Needs Help

Red Flags vs. Normal Variation: How to Tell If Your Child Needs Help

Here’s something most parents don’t realize: Two five-year-olds sitting side by side in the same kindergarten classroom can be months apart in their reading readiness, and both can be perfectly…

Why Decodable Books Matter More Than You Think

Why Decodable Books Matter More Than You Think

Your child has been learning letter sounds for weeks. They can tell you that “s” says /s/ and “a” says /a/ and “t” says /t/. Then you hand them a…

The Alphabetic Principle: The One Concept That Changes Everything for Both Teachers and Parents

The Alphabetic Principle: The One Concept That Changes Everything for Both Teachers and Parents

Right now, you’re reading these words without thinking about how you’re doing it. Your brain is instantly converting letters into sounds and sounds into meaning, all in milliseconds. But there…

Fluency Is Not a Bonus Skill: Why Reading Rate and Accuracy Matter

Fluency Is Not a Bonus Skill: Why Reading Rate and Accuracy Matter

Most parents celebrate when their child can sound out words on a page. That’s a huge milestone. But here’s what often gets overlooked: decoding is not the finish line. A…

Adopted Children and Phonics: Addressing Gaps from Disrupted Early Language Exposure

Adopted Children and Phonics: Addressing Gaps from Disrupted Early Language Exposure

Before a child ever sees a letter on a page, their brain is already building the architecture for reading. It happens through thousands of hours of being spoken to, sung…

Phonics for Students with Visual Processing Difficulties

Phonics for Students with Visual Processing Difficulties

Your child passed the eye exam with flying colors, but they still mix up “b” and “d,” lose their place on the page, and get frustrated every time they sit…

Multilingual Learners at Home: Phonics When English Is the Second Language

Multilingual Learners at Home: Phonics When English Is the Second Language

Your family speaks Spanish at home, but your child is learning to read in English at school. Or perhaps your household runs on Mandarin, Arabic, or Somali, and your kindergartener…