Phonics for Homeschool Moms. Phonemic awareness. Digraphs. Phonological awareness. Phoneme isolation. Phoneme substitution. CVC words. Graphemes. Trigraphs. Decoding. Encoding. If it sounds like I’m speaking another Language, I’ll bet you’re not alone!
Homeschool moms, it’s time to demystify phonics terms, so that you can increase your confidence in teaching your child to read. Phonemic awareness, Digraphs, Phoneme isolation, CVC words, Graphemes, Decoding and Encoding.
Phonics for Homeschool Moms (7 Must-Know Terms)
- Phonemic awareness is the ability of your child to hear the smallest units of sounds (also called phonemes) in a Language. Phonemic awareness is taught orally, so easily taught in Kindergarten, even if your child struggles with hand grip.
- Digraphs are letter teams that make one sound. There are consonant digraphs and vowel digraphs. An example of a consonant digraph is ‘sh’ that spells the sound /sh/. An example of a vowel digraph is the vowel team ‘ea’ which spells the long /e/ sound. Learn about digraphs! I’ve often asked students, which letter in the alphabet spells ‘ch’. I can see the gears turning in their minds, then smiles, as they realized I’ve asked them a trick question! NONE! This is where they are really hooked to find out, “How DO I spell /ch/?”
- Phoneme isolation is the ability of your child to identify a phoneme (or letter sound) in a word. In the word ‘bat’, can your child identify the middle phoneme, short /a/? The final phoneme /t/? Your child’s ability to orally hear and identify individual phonemes in words is a HUGE predictor of future reading success! Can your child identify the beginning, medial and final phonemes? After phoneme identification, teach your child phoneme substitution. Ask your child to change /c/ to /h/ in ‘cat’. What’s the new word?
- CVC words are simple words for early readers in the consonant-vowel-consonant pattern. Examples of CVC words are ‘cat’, ‘tip’ and ‘hop’. CVC words is a perfect phonics for homeschool moms reading activity!
- Graphemes are symbols that represent sounds. For example, the letter ‘t’ is the grapheme that represents the /t/ sound.
- Decoding (reading) is the ability of your child to look at individual graphemes in words, recall the phoneme (or sounds) that letter represents, and blend these sounds to read a word.
- Encoding (spelling) is the ability of your child to hear individual sounds in words, and write the correct grapheme(s) (letters) that represent those sounds.
