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The foundation of reading begins with phonemic awareness. For most young children, phonemic awareness develops gradually through exposure to nursery rhymes and word play (for example, through back-and-forth language development). From phonemic awareness grows phonics knowledge. Research tells us that phonics instruction should be explicit and systematic; it requires direct teaching of letter-sound relationships in a defined sequence. The role and ultimate goal of phonics instruction is to support a child’s progress as they become fluent readers and writers.

Basic Concepts

There is a broad range of literacy terms and concepts used in developing a child’s reading skills. We are focusing on four of the essential concepts that are often lesser known:

• Phonemic awareness
• Phonics
• Decoding
• Fluency

What is Phonemic Awareness?

The ability to think or have awareness of units of sound. The Greek root word phon means ‘sound’.

Here are three simple skills to strengthen phonemic awareness. Try asking your child these example questions.

• Learn to segment words into phonemes (units of sound). 
  • Q: What three sounds do you hear in the word cat?
  • A: /c/-/a/-/t/
• Blend phonemes into word parts and words.
  • Q: What word am I trying to say /sh/ – /u/ – /t/?
  • A: shut
• Rhyme and play with language.
  • While reading books like There’s a Wocket in my Pocket! by Dr. Seuss, invite your child to make up words.
  • Q: There’s a _____ in my pocket?
  • A: mocket

Simultaneously, children learn the alphabetic principle by learning letter names, their sounds and how to write them.

What is Phonics?

Phonics is the relationship between sounds and how they are visually represented by letters – think sound (spoken language) and sight (written language); sound-letter correspondence.

Phonics work involves distinguishing language patterns and then transferring them to the practices of reading or writing. When children understand that there is a consistent relationship between letter sounds and spoken sounds, they can use this knowledge to read words – both unknown and known words.

What is Decoding?

Decoding words, also known as sounding out, happens when children apply what they understand about letter-sound relationships to pronounce written words. It requires knowing letter patterns, such as ‘-tion’ or ‘-ing,’ in addition to single letter knowledge. For example, the letter pattern ‘-ing’ is at the end of many words. Knowing this can help a child decode a word they might not have seen before, like ‘eating’ or ‘laughing’. Decoding is also useful for words that follow phonics rules (e.g. a one-syllable short-vowel word that ends with a ‘-k’ sound almost always ends in a ‘-ck’; a two-syllable short-vowel sound that ends with a ‘ee’ sound almost always ends in a ‘y’). For words that do not follow phonics rules, often called sight words (or ‘snap’ words), children must rely on memorization.

What is Fluency?

Fluency is the ability to read smoothly as a result of being able to quickly recognize and understand the words you are reading. It means that you are reading as if you are speaking, reading and understanding all at the same time (when decoding no longer occurs for the reader to understand the words). Fluency is marked by the rate of reading, accuracy and expression, which indicates comprehension. Fluent reading sounds like you are talking. You speak with intonation and in phrases rather than word by word, and you comprehend while you are reading.

Other Terminology

From sight words (or ‘snap’ words), to short vowels, digraphs, blends and long vowels, here are some common terms and an extensive glossary.

You may also come across other technical terms, like:

• Synthesizing – Synthesizing refers to the act of taking what you know while reading, from the text and your schema, and putting them together. It is not a part of decoding. For example, if you were reading about a character and you were unsure what it was and this character was described as “having a wagging tail and panting”, you could take that information and what you know about dogs, and synthesize that the character is a dog.
• Word recognition – Word recognition is the automatic recognition of words. Decoding is what you do when a child does not have sufficient word recognition skills. The more words a child can recognize, the more fluent a reader they are.
• Vocabulary – Vocabulary is critical for reading comprehension, as a child needs to know what the words mean in order to understand what they are reading. Most vocabulary learning is indirect, though some vocabulary learning happens through direct instruction. Continue to ask your child questions about novel words when you are reading together, and model your thinking by using the context of a sentence/story or background knowledge to figure out the meaning of a given word.
• Spelling – Spelling and reading draw on the same knowledge of how letters work. Spelling instruction, and understanding the representation of words, can help children read more fluently.
• Comprehension – This is about teaching a child to make connections (to other texts, to themselves, the world) about what they are reading while they are reading.