5 Common Phonics Mistakes Parents Make (and How to Fix Them)

Introduction

Teaching your child to read is an exciting adventure. Take a shortcut to learning to read by avoiding these 5 Common Mistakes. 

Mistake #1 - Focusing on Letter Names Instead of Letter Sounds

This is an easy one to do because Board Books and the ABC song emphasize letter names. Your child does need to learn letter names, however, for reading they also have to know the sounds the letters represent. Learning sounds needs to be the focus. 

Eventually, your child will learn ~44 letter sounds (phonemes), 26 letter names, 26 lower case letters, and 26 upper case letters. That seems like a lot, but if you point out what the letter sounds, names, and shapes have in common it will be easier.

1. Many of the letter names have their sound in their name. For example: bee, dee, pee, eff, em, en, ess, and tee. 
2. The long vowels, ā  ī  ē  ō  ū, say their own name.
3. Some letters look the same in lower and upper case, like mM, sS, wW, and xX.
4. Some letters share sounds with other letters, like c, k, and ck (can, kite, and back), or c and s (celery and salsa).    

Calling attention to the similarities and differences in letter sounds, shapes, and names makes it easier to make connections that help with remembering them.

It’s okay to teach the sounds, shapes, and names all at once, as long as you emphasize that the sounds and shapes are what is needed for reading. One way to do this is to sing ABC songs that say the sounds. 

You know your child best, so work with their interests and abilities, and eventually they will learn all of the sounds, shapes, and names. 

Fun Fact: Mozart wrote a version of the ABC/Twinkle Twinkle Little Star tune. You can listen to Natalie Schwanova’s beautiful interpretation of it here.

You can read about the origin of the ABC song. 

Mistake #2 - Mispronouncing Sounds (Phonemes)

When your child is learning the sounds, you want to isolate them into pure sounds. It’s really easy to add an /uh/ sound onto a consonant sound. This turns one pure sound into two sounds which won’t make sense when your child tries to read words with that sound. 

If you say /buh/ for /b/, your child will have difficulty figuring out words because they will hear /buh/ /a/ /tuh/ which does not easily blend into the word bat. A sharp, pure /b/ /a/ /t/ will blend more easily.

The hardest sounds to clip short are the stop sounds: /d/ /g/ /h/ /j/ /k/ /p/ /t/. Try to make these sounds pop out of your mouth by keeping them short and quick.

Some sounds, /a/ /e/ /f/ /i/ /l/ /m/ /n/ /o/ /r/ /s/ /u/ /v/ /w/ /y/ /z/ /th/ /th/ /sh/ /zh/ /ng/, are easier to say, because they are continuous. You can make these sounds as long as you have breath.  

Some tricks for saying the sounds correctly include:

1. Make a scissor snipping motion near your mouth as you practice the stop sounds 
2. Touch your teeth together when you say the stop sounds
3. Begin with some continuous sounds as they are easier to blend into words such as: van, man, fan, Sam, fin, win.

Fun Fact: Two of the phonemes are unique because they move from a stop to a continuous sound: q is usually combined with u as in quick and says /kw/, and x says /ks/ as in fox.

Mistake #3 - Introducing Too Many Sounds at Once

At Juneberry Learning, we believe in bite sized learning using multisensory, playful activities. It takes 3-4 years to become a strong reader, and rushing the process causes frustration and shatters confidence. You know your child best, so choose a pace that works for them.

Our Alphabites Game Pack and Quick Start Guide show you how to introduce letter sounds through playful games, using common household items. If you begin early, you’ll have plenty of time to help your child learn the sounds, shapes, and names of letters. They will quickly be reading decodable books, which will boost their confidence and provide motivation for learning.

We suggest practicing 3 sounds at a time and using 5 minutes a day to play one of the games in the Alphabites Game Pack. Once a sound is learned, it becomes a review sound, and a new sound is added to the practice sounds. Once a few sounds are learned, use the sound cards to make simple words for your child to read. This helps them see the purpose of learning sounds to read and write.

To move quickly from sounds to reading and writing, teach the most common sound of a letter. For example, hard c in cat /k/ is more common than soft c in cent /s/, so when there is a c at the beginning of a word, try saying /k/ first. Add other sounds a letter can represent as needed for reading harder words.

You know your child best, so custom design a learning pace that fits their attention span and interests. This will strengthen your relationship and create a joyful learning space.

Mistake #4 - Not Teaching Phonemic Awareness, Blending, and Segmenting

Phonemic Awareness means being able to hear individual sounds (phonemes) in spoken words. Phonemic awareness is done orally, while blending and segmenting are used during reading and writing. 

Phonemic Awareness is needed for knowing how to tear words apart into individual sounds and blend sounds together to make words. Tearing words apart into sounds is called segmenting and putting sounds together into words is called blending. 

Children do not know that the smooth flowing stream of words they hear are actually individual sounds blended together. To read, they need to be able to hear those sounds and attach the sounds to letters. 

Research tells us that being able to blend and segment words is a strong predictor of how well a child learns to read. 

Introduce your child to the connection between words, letters, and sounds through playful activities such as:

1. When your child is getting dressed, emphasize certain words by drawing them out into individual sounds: Put on your shhhhhh-oooooooooo-ssssss (shoes) or Remember to get your wwwwwaaaatttteeeerrrrr (water) bottle. Turn it into a playful game by calling it robot, sloth, or turtle talk. Encourage your child to try stretching out words to see if you can guess what they are saying.
2. Segmenting is easier than blending. To segment a word such as hat, pull it apart into beginning, middle, and ending sounds: /h/ /a/ /t/. When you segment a word into sounds, hold up fingers to count the sounds, or put balls of play clay in a row and squish a ball for each sound. Show your child that some words, such as /f/ /i/ /sh/ have more letters than sounds.
3. Beginning sounds are always easiest to hear. Say words and have your child tell you the first sound they hear in each word. What is the first sound you hear when I say the word ball? Once they can hear beginning sounds, move to hearing ending sounds and then middle sounds.
4. Blend sounds into a word by saying the individual sounds /s/ /a/ /t/. Have your child repeat the sounds, then blend them together to say the word sat. It takes lots of practice to move from hearing individual sounds to making those sounds flow together into a word.

There are over 400 child friendly words included in the Alphabites Games Pack. Use them to help your child practice phonemic awareness. When you are reading with your child, point to the words. Occasionally pause to say a word in robot/sloth talk as you point at and then count each of the phonemes.   

Phonemic Awareness helps your child connect sounds to letters and understand how words are formed. This is the basis for reading and spelling.

Mistake #5 - Relying on Worksheets and Flashcards 

Some children love worksheets, but for many, sitting and filling in blanks or circling letters is boring and frustrating. Active, playful learning through games and physical activity has been shown to help children learn faster and remember what they have learned.

Adults can instantly recall 20,000 to more than 50,000 words. You can’t possibly memorize that many words. You know those words instantly because they are mapped into your long term memory through connections between spelling, pronunciation, and meaning. Words are learned by how they are used in sentences rather than by isolating them on flashcards.

The goal is to help your child learn words quickly and efficiently. The way to do this is to teach them the connection between letters and sounds (alphabetic code). Emphasize sounds and letters by:

1. Playing games - Alphabites Game Pack includes over 26 multisensory games.
2. Singing songs, saying poems, and tongue twisters - Alphabites Game Pack has 32 hilarious tongue twisters.
3. Playing aloud with sounds and words, making rhymes, and robot talking.
4. Reading together to see words used in meaningful ways.
5. Doing crafts and art projects to practice letter shapes.
6. Creating puppet shows and other imaginary play to build vocabulary. 

Learning letters and sounds should be an exciting adventure. Using multisensory (sight, sound, touch, movement), creative activities will help your child stay engaged. Practicing with real, meaningful words in spoken and written language helps your child see the purpose of phonics instruction and connect it to actual reading and writing.

Summary

Make teaching your child to read a joyful adventure by avoiding the five common phonics mistakes discussed above. Here’s a list of what you should do instead:

1. Focus on letter sounds
2. Pronounce phonemes correctly
3. Introducing three sounds at a time
4. Teach phonemic awareness, blending, and segmenting
5. Use multisensory, creative activities to teach the sounds

Anyone can teach their child to read, and you can too! To get more help, check out our Teach Your Child to Read with Juneberry Learning course (coming soon!). Sign up for our newsletter to be the first to know when it’s available.