Understanding phonics

This guide explains what phonics is, why it is important, and how you can support your child’s learning at home.

Reading is a foundational life skill and a source of pleasure and wonder.

The teaching of phonics is a key component in helping children become confident, fluent readers.

Phonics links sounds to their letters.

Students learn to read words by recognising these sound-letter relationships.

Phonics instruction is a highly effective way to teach children to read words accurately.

It builds decoding skills—sounding out words—which help students figure out unfamiliar words. Phonics gives children the tools to understand patterns in text, boosting their reading fluency and comprehension.

How can you support phonics learning at home?

Learning to read takes time and encouragement, and everyone learns at their own pace. 

It’s important to celebrate your child’s small wins and encourage them to keep trying, even when it’s hard.

When children enjoy learning, they stay motivated and build a strong reading foundation. 

Making phonics practice fun is the best way to keep them engaged. Here are some activities you can stick on the fridge and do at home with your child:

• Read together: Choose a favourite book and read it together.
• Phonics bingo: Create cards with letters/words. Call out a sound and ask your child to find the matching card.
• Memory games: Use flashcards with letters and images (like ‘Cc’ and ‘cat’) to find matching pairs.
• I spy: Play ‘I spy,’ focusing on the starting sound (e.g., “… begins with /b/”).
• Sand or salt trays: Trace letters in salt or sand while saying the sound aloud.
• Playdough letters: Make letters with playdough, saying the sounds as you make them.
• Hopscotch with sounds: Draw a hopscotch grid with letters. Say the sound as you hop on each letter.
• Phonics songs: Find fun phonics songs online that use repetition and music to remember the sounds.
• Nursery rhymes and poems: Use rhymes to spot sound patterns and shared letters.
• Sound hunt: Find objects around the house that start with a specific sound (e.g., /s/).
• Word hunt: Hide word cards. Have your child find and read them aloud.
• Letter collage: Cut out pictures from magazines that start with a specific sound and make a collage.
• Phonics jump: Write letters on the floor. Call out a sound and jump to it.
• Sound labels: Label objects (e.g., the door with /d/). Sound it out every time you pass.
• Sound of the day/week: Choose one sound (like /a/). Listen for it in conversation, TV, or books.
• Make your own: Have fun making up your own activities using sounds and words!

How is phonics taught in schools?

The key elements of phonics are:

• Phonemes: the smallest sounds in words (like the /k/ sound in ‘cat’).
• Graphemes: the letters or groups of letters that represent those sounds (like the letter ‘c’ in ‘cat’).
• Blending: putting sounds together to read a word (e.g., /k/ /a/ /t/ becomes ‘cat’).
• Segmenting: breaking words down into sounds to spell them (e.g., ‘chat’ becomes /ch/ /a/ /t/).

Phonics is taught in a step-by-step way.

Children start with the simplest sounds (like /s/, /a/, and /t/) and slowly move to more complex sound-letter patterns (like /ee/ as in ‘bee’ or /oa/ as in ‘cloak’).

This is called systematic synthetic phonics.

Children learn sounds first. Then they practise blending those sounds together to read whole words.

Teachers have many different ways to make phonics lessons engaging. This might include short, focused lessons which incorporate both reading and writing. They may also play games, like the ones suggested in this guide.

What if my child is struggling with phonics?

If your child is having trouble, talk to their teacher. Some children just need a little extra practice or a personalised teaching approach.

Resources

• Cairney, T. (2024). Literacy, families and Learning. Blogspot.com
• Castles, A., Parrila, R., &Kohnen, S. (2024). What is phonics and why is it used to teach reading? The Conversation
• Independent Schools Victoria. (2024). Phonics: A guide for parents. The Parents Website
• Literacy Hub. (2023). The big six of literacy: A guide for families.

Acknowledgement 

The Academy is grateful to Parents Victoria for their expert advice in producing this guide.

This document has been prepared by the Victorian Academy of Teaching and Leadership (the Academy). 

• The Academy reserves any moral rights of integrity in this text and publishes it on the basis that it may be used, provided it is not altered or adapted for use without the express permission of the Academy.
• Please note that the Further Reading (References) section is provided for attribution only and not subject to the terms of the Creative Commons Licence.  No representations are made as to the accessibility or copyright ownership of the publications listed and they are solely provided as alternative sources of knowledge relevant to the topic.
• Content edited and up-to-date as of October 2024.

Frequently Asked Questions