Simple phonics strategies will help you, homeschool mom. When you know these 5 simple phonics strategies, you can streamline your homeschool Kindergarten phonics instruction and know exactly how to teach your child to read.
5 Homeschool Kindergarten Phonics Strategies
- phonemic awareness drill
- oral drill
- visual drill
- blending drill
- segmenting drill
Homeschool Kindergarten Phonics Strategy #1
Phonemic awareness is the foundational simple phonics strategy you need in your homeschool Kindergarten reading block. Do not skip phonemic awareness in your homeschool Kindergarten reading block if you want your child to become a successful reader.
Phonemic awareness is being aware of the smallest units of sound in the English Language. Phonemic awareness can be taught orally, and without any letters at all! So, you can teach your homeschool Kindergarten child phonemic awareness long before asking them to ever spell a word!
For example, you would say these individual sounds /m/, /e/, /t/. Your child should be able to hear these 3 smallest units of sound and blend them to say the word ‘met’.
Homeschool Kindergarten Phonics Strategy #2
Oral drills are the next simple phonics strategy you should including in your homeschool Kindergarten and Grade One phonics lessons. You (homeschool mom) say a sound, and your child matches the correct letter to the sound. For example, you say the sound /t/. Your child can show you the matching letter for the sound in many ways.
Homeschool mom, when you provide your child with magnetic letters, a tray of sand, whiteboard and whiteboard maker, you increase engagement during your homeschool Kindergarten phonics lessons by using different materials for your child to demonstrate her knowledge of phonics. Magnetic letters are fun, and don’t require developed fine motor skills to write a letter.
What child doesn’t like to draw in the sand? Your child can finger write the letter symbol on a sand-filled cookie sheet or shallow tub. Whiteboard markers are fun to use, especially when you get to erase mistakes with a cute sock! Homeschool mom, make these engaging materials part of your Kindergarten homeschool phonics reading routine.
Homeschool Kindergarten Phonics Strategy #3
Visual drills are the third simple phonics strategy you should use when teaching your child to read. You show or draw a letter, and your child says the matching sound. Homeschool mom, you get to have some fun drawing letters in the sand, drawing on a whiteboard and playing with magnetic letters!
Visual drills used in Kindergarten homeschool phonics lessons increase your child’s automatic recall (automaticity) of relationships between alphabet letters and sounds. This is the foundation of phonics, and a significant predictor of your child’s ability to read and spell with accuracy.
Homeschool Kindergarten Phonics Strategy #4
Blending drills are a must-do activity in your homeschool Kindergarten phonics instruction! This is where your child uses his knowledge of alphabet letters and sounds to actually read words! When your child can blend sounds to read simple CV (vowel-consonant) and CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant), you’ll know that the phonics strategies you’re teaching in your Kindergarten homeschool reading block are putting your child on a path for reading success!
Begin blending 2 or 3 letter words. Then, try having your child blend nonsense words, such as ‘nef’ and ‘vid’ to test her ability to apply phonics skills taught during homeschool Kindergarten phonics lessons.
Homeschool Kindergarten Phonics Strategy #5
Segmenting drills are a vital component of your homeschool Kindergarten phonics instruction. Why? In order to accurately spell words, your child needs to be able to segment words into its smallest units of sound (phonemes).
Words are made of more than one sound. When you ask your child to segment the word ‘sip’, they should be able to say each individual sound as /s/ – /i/ – /p/.
