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

Discover practical ways to build phonics skills through everyday activities like cooking and crafts with your child.

Building Phonics Skills Through Cooking, Crafts, and Daily Activities

Have you ever noticed how children can recite entire commercial jingles after hearing them...

Discover how audiobooks and phonics work together for young readers and learn practical strategies to balance listening and systematic reading instruction.

Audiobooks and Phonics: Friend or Foe for Developing Readers?

Your five-year-old sits captivated, listening to a beautifully narrated story about dragons and brave...

Discover the truth about AI reading apps for phonics instruction and learn how to choose apps that truly support systematic, evidence-based reading development.

AI Reading Apps: Promise vs. Reality for Phonics Instruction

The latest AI-powered reading app promises to transform your child’s phonics learning with personalized...

End preschool and kindergarten phonics homework battles with 6 peaceful strategies. Transform tears into success using play-based approaches.

Homework Battles: Making Phonics Practice Peaceful and Productive

Five-year-old Jake loves learning at school, but the moment his phonics worksheet appears at...

Grandparents as reading partners? Try these 8 fun phonics activities to boost literacy and build lasting bonds.

Grandparents as Reading Partners: Simple Phonics Activities for Any Age

When four-year-old Emma visits Grandma Sarah, magic happens. They curl up in the old...

Transform your child's reading with 10 powerful 15-minute phonics activities. Maximum learning impact in minimal time for busy families.

15-Minute Phonics: Maximum Impact Reading Practice for Busy Families

Between soccer practice, dinner prep, and bedtime routines, finding time for phonics practice can...

Stop summer reading loss with 8 proven strategies to maintain your child's phonics skills during break.

8 Tips to Prevent Summer Reading Loss

The last day of school arrives with excitement and relief, but lurking beneath the...

Discover proven ADHD and phonics strategies using multisensory techniques that build reading focus.

ADHD and Phonics: How to Maintain Focus During Reading Instruction

Your energetic six-year-old sits down for phonics practice, excited to learn new letter sounds....

Discover effective Phonics Catch-Up strategies for older students struggling with reading fundamentals.

Phonics Catch-Up: Helping Older Elementary Students Fill the Gaps

When nine-year-old Marcus sits down with his fourth-grade chapter book, he looks confident and...

The Third Grade Reading Crisis affects millions. Learn why this year determines literacy success.

Third Grade Reading Crisis: Why This Year Makes or Breaks Literacy

A classroom full of third graders opens their science textbooks, ready to learn about...

Hanukkah Books That Support Early Reading Skills

Hanukkah Books That Support Early Reading Skills

The menorah glows on the kitchen counter. Your preschooler watches the first candle flicker and asks, “Can we read a Hanukkah story?” You reach for a colorful picture book, and…

New Year’s Stories That Build Reading Skills

New Year’s Stories That Build Reading Skills

New Year’s brings fresh starts, new goals, and celebrations around the world. You pull out a stack of colorful books. Each one exploring different traditions and the magic of new…

Matching Books to Phonics Features

Matching Books to Phonics Features

You open a picture book with your four-year-old. The words dance across the page in predictable patterns. Your child giggles at silly animal sounds, then surprises you by chanting along…

Christmas Books For Reading Practice

Christmas Books For Reading Practice

Your child snuggles beside you on a cold December evening, eyes bright with anticipation as you open a holiday book. The pages smell like fresh print and possibility. Outside, snowflakes…

Holiday Books With Good Phonics Practice: 10 Festive Reads for Emerging Readers

Holiday Books With Good Phonics Practice: 10 Festive Reads for Emerging Readers

The twinkling lights are up, cookies are baking, and your eager young reader wants to dive into every holiday book on the shelf. But here’s the wonderful secret many parents…

Twice-Exceptional Readers: Phonics for Gifted Students with Dyslexia

Twice-Exceptional Readers: Phonics for Gifted Students with Dyslexia

Picture a seven-year-old who can explain the water cycle in stunning detail, design elaborate engineering projects with building blocks, and engage in conversations that rival those of much older children.…

Phonics Professional Development: Programs That Actually Work

Phonics Professional Development: Programs That Actually Work

Rachel teaches first grade in a suburban elementary school. Last year, she watched five of her students struggle through every reading lesson while their classmates progressed steadily. She tried different…

Homeschool Phonics: Choosing and Implementing Programs

Homeschool Phonics: Choosing and Implementing Programs

You open the package with equal parts excitement and dread. Inside sits your investment in your child’s reading future: workbooks, lesson plans, manipulatives, and a teacher’s manual that could stop…

Letter Reversals: Normal Development or Red Flag?

Letter Reversals: Normal Development or Red Flag?

Your kindergartener writes “doy” instead of “boy.” Your first grader reads “was” as “saw.” The letters b and d seem interchangeable in their writing. You wonder: Is this normal? Should…

Phonics Plateau: Why Some Students Stop Progressing

Phonics Plateau: Why Some Students Stop Progressing

Your child was making steady progress. Each week brought new letter sounds, longer words, and growing confidence. Then suddenly, nothing. The forward momentum stopped. Your once-enthusiastic reader now struggles with…