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

Phonics learning with Dog Man: Explore phonics patterns, word-building, and engaging reading strategies.

Fun Phonics Learning with Dog Man

The Dog Man series by Dav Pilkey has captured the imagination of young readers...

Discover how children learn to spell through developmental spelling patterns and how parents and teachers can support each stage of literacy growth.

Developmental Spelling Patterns – Here’s How Kids Learn to Spell

Just as children progress through stages when learning to walk and talk, they also...

Learn how systematic phonics and spelling instruction work together to prevent common reading errors and build stronger literacy skills.

The Connection Between Phonics and Spelling: Building Both Skills Together

Learning to read and write are two sides of the same coin. While many...

Discover phonics rules by age to support children's literacy development with clear, age-specific milestones.

What Phonics Rules Should Children Know (By Age)?

Understanding phonics milestones by age helps parents and educators effectively support children’s literacy development....

Learn how to become a phonics tutor with this guide on training, effective instruction, and starting your practice.

How to Become a Phonics Tutor

Are you passionate about helping children learn to read? Whether you’re a parent who...

Discover effective strategies for teaching silent letters and tricky word patterns to young readers.

Silent Letters and Tricky Words

Picture this: Your young reader is confidently sounding out words when they encounter “knife”...

Discover how movement enhances phonics learning, building stronger neural connections for reading skills.

The Connection Between Movement and Phonics Learning

When young children learn letter sounds through movement – jumping as they say /j/,...

Explore the science behind the bionic reading method and why it may hinder genuine reading development.

Bionic Reading: Y/N?

Tech + nature – sounds like the future, right?  In recent years, a new...

Discover how systematic phonics instruction can solve America's literacy crisis and improve reading skills.

Phonics and the Literacy Crisis: America’s Reading Challenge

The statistics are sobering: 66% of American fourth graders are failing to meet proficiency...

Parental literacy directly affects a child’s academic performance. Learn more here.

How Adult Literacy Shapes Children’s Learning

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 43 million adults in the U.S....

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…