Phonics refers to the ability to learn the individual sounds in spoken language and match those sounds to specific written letters in the English language. This is called mapping sound to print. Phonics is the awareness that letters and sounds are related.

Students who have strong phonics skills are able to connect individual sounds with letters. Then they are able to blend letter sounds into whole words. Students are then able to use these skills in reading comprehension, word recognition and spelling.

The goal of phonics instruction is to help children learn the alphabetic principle - the idea that letters represent the sounds of spoken language - and that there is an organized, logical, and predictable relationship between written letters and spoken sounds. Learning that there are predictable relationships between sounds and letters allows children to apply these relationships to both familiar and unfamiliar words, and to begin to read with fluency.

Children are taught, for example, that the letter n represents the sound /n/, and that it is the first letter in words such as nose, nice and new. When children understand sound-letter correspondence, they are able to sound out and read (decode) new words.

Learning how the 26 letters in our written alphabet are used to represent the roughly 44 sounds in our spoken language allows children to unlock the code of our written language!

(Reading Rockets)

All of the stages of phonemic awareness prior to this have dealt exclusively with sounds and sound combinations. Now we move from sound to print!

Phonics Activities for Your Kindergartener

Phonics Activities for Your 1st Grader

Phonics Activities for Your 2nd Grader

We have a Title I Reading Specialist available at each building to assist parents with supporting their child’s academic progress between home and school. One of the roles of the Title I Reading Specialist is that of a coordinator who provides opportunities for parents to participate in workshops and activities that will greatly benefit students. Also, the Title I Reading Specialist organizes and conducts, planning meetings with parents and volunteering opportunities that will help influence academic success. For more information, please contact the Title I Reading Specialist at your student's school:

• Joseph Federbar ES - Pam Haggerty
• Herbert Hoover ES - Joan Brooks
• Walter Miller ES - Kelly Dougherty
• Albert Schweitzer ES - Kim Maurizi
• Tawanka ES - Jen Gross /Andrea Gansor