Make Teaching Reading Simple

As a teacher, you have a lot on your plate. You are responsible for a handful of energetic early learners and their education for the next school year. It is a huge task to teach so many different skills to children who are new to the classroom setting and even learning as a process. Teaching reading to early learners is not a simple task, but with certain tools, it can be streamlined to be efficient and productive without compromising on the quality of education.

What is the best way to teach reading? Science and research findings support phonics as the most effective method to teaching reading. 

Teaching Reading With Phonics Works Really Well 

Why does phonics work so well when it comes to teaching reading? Before children can read, they need to develop several skills. Then, these skills must be combined to result in proficient reading. According to the National Reading Panel, there are five components to reading.

The five components to reading include: 

• Phonemic awareness
• Phonics
• Vocabulary
• Reading fluency
• Reading comprehension 

Additionally, reading is not a natural skill for anyone. Each person must learn how to read, which is why teaching reading using the correct method is absolutely crucial.

Phonics works because it explicitly trains children to understand the relationship between sound and text, between phonemes and graphemes. What does the process of teaching reading with phonics look like?

First, children learn phonemes. Phonemes are the smallest units of sound that make up words. Phonemes might be at the start of words, the end of words or in the middle. The skill of recognizing phonemes in speech and in words is called phonemic awareness. It is essential, when teaching reading skills, that children are very aware of what sounds goes into words. To state it differently, children should be able to break down words into individual sounds – or phonemes.  This skill is called phonemic awareness. It doesn’t involve any text, but it is the foundation for future reading success.

Once children have mastered phonemic awareness, they have a strong understanding of the sounds that make up words. Now they’re ready to learn about the written symbols that represent those sounds! We call these written symbols graphemes, and they can include a single letter or a group of letters. In order to learn to read, students must learn how sounds (phonemes) are represented in text (graphemes). When it comes to teaching reading to early learners, making apparent the relationship between phonemes and graphemes may be the hardest part. 

However, when children do understand how to decode letters into whole words and know what they mean, they are finally starting to learn how to read. 

Teaching Reading With Phonics Is Fun For Students

Contrary to popular belief, phonics is not boring. In the past, phonics had a reputation for repetitive drills and boring classroom lessons. This is simply untrue. Phonics is the best method for teaching reading to early learners, and it can be so much fun for kids!

When children acquire the skills necessary to learn how to read, they race off to practice. They are eager to apply their newfound skills, mess around, create new words and learn how to read anything from street signs to cereal boxes. To them, learning to read is like a big puzzle that needs solving. 

What parts about learning to read do children enjoy?

• Playing games
• Singing songs 
• Learning how to spell their names
• Learning what sounds make their favorite words
• Learning to decode letters into words
• Learning to read on their own
• Understanding stories 

When children learn how to read, they feel confident, smart and encouraged to continue reading and learning. For this reason, teaching reading using phonics is important for children’s success.

Best of all, teachers can expose kids to reading through games, activities and exercises that involve the entire class. As a teacher for early learners, there is no shortage of material for teaching reading. 

Teaching Reading With Phonics Prepares Students for Long-term Success

Teaching reading skills as soon as possible helps children succeed in school all around. Proficient readers are able to then build vocabulary and reading comprehension skills, which aid them in studying language arts, science, history, art and even math. Without basic reading skills, school becomes very, very challenging. As a result, teaching reading with success becomes exceptionally important. 

One of the best parts about teaching reading through phonics is that is prepares children for long-term success. As early learners graduate year after year and enter junior high and high school, they will consistently encounter words they do not know. They will consistently read difficult passages of text and be given assignments hard to digest. But, with a strong background in phonics, they can clear these challenges. How?

Decoding, blending and segmenting are huge parts of phonics training and key in learning how to read. Decoding is the process of translating letters on the page into sound and meaningful words. This is when children learn to match graphemes to phonemes and pronounce the word correctly.

In a similar way, blending and segmenting teach students to split long words apart into smaller pieces. Once they segment words, they can decode bit by bit. Then, they blend the pieces back together for the right pronunciation. This is a skill and process only included in phonics training and it can be applied in virtually any step of their school careers. Whether students are in kindergarten learning how to read the word cat or in high school biology trying to learn about mitosis. In fact, even as adults, we decode, blend and segment every day. It is an indispensable skill that prepares our students for long-term success. Teaching reading through phonics allows that to happen.

Teaching Reading With Professor Pup and His Friends 

For teachers, teaching reading does not need to be complicated or difficult. In fact, you don’t even need to know too much about reading science or have in-depth phonics training. Professor Pup’s Academy does the hard work for you.

The key is to start small. When children are three to five years old, they need tiny bite-size pieces of information disguised into games, songs and colorful activities. This type of stimulation keeps them engaged and entertained while learning crucial skills for reading.

Our programs are easy to use in the classroom. Students make their way through the tablet-based programs independently and at their own pace, so that they feel confident and engaged. Meanwhile, the Teacher Portal provides detailed metrics of each student’s progress, along with recordings of each student reading.. Every lesson includes printable worksheets and ideas for fun, hands-on activities. Our curriculum was designed by early literacy experts who combined the best of reading science and phonics training to deliver an effective solution to teaching reading.  

Professor Pup and his friends accompany students each step of the way, teaching phonemes, teaching graphemes and eventually teaching reading. 

Would you like to try Professor Pup for your classroom? If so, please visit our page just for teachers.

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