Activities to improve children's phonics and decoding skills

Decoding, a key skill in reading, involves recognizing letters and their sounds to form words. This ability helps store words for future recall. Activities that enhance visual memory and word blending can aid in developing decoding skills.

One suggested activity is a matching game using flashcards with similar words such as "dad," "bad," "fad," and "mad." This game promotes visual discrimination and memory recall by having children match words, especially those with commonly confused letters.

Another activity is the Blending Slide, where children sound out letters placed on an image of a slide as they move down it. This exercise can be customized with different themes like buildings or planets, encouraging children to blend sounds into words.

Bingo can also be adapted for phonics practice by using grids filled with letters or words. Children find the corresponding word on their bingo sheet after hearing a letter sound or a slowly sounded-out word.

Reading decodable books is another method to support early literacy. These books use simple vocabulary and focus on specific sounds to help new readers practice effectively.

For further resources on early literacy, visit KCPL’s Early Literacy page or explore other related blog posts.

"Happy reading!"

This information was provided by Lisa Clark, Youth Collection Librarian.