Phonics: What Is It And How Does It Work?

If you’ve been looking into early childhood education at all, you may very well have heard of

phonics. 

This is currently the “in” way of teaching children to read. Parents

of children attending Friday’s Child Montessori might

wonder what phonics is all about and how it works. 

You might also be wondering why your child is learning to read in a different way (possibly) to the way you were taught all those

years ago.

This is completely different from the “whole language” approach that was popular in schools and

early childhood centres back in the 1980s. 

The “whole language” method encouraged children to learn words as whole units rather

than sounding out the individual letters and putting them together.

Phonics isn’t new.  In fact, it’s probably one of the older ways of

learning how to read.

If you’ve read “Great Expectation” by Charles Dickens, you might

remember the scene where Pip is trying to teach his foster father,

Joe, to read, and Joe has managed to sound out J-O… Joe. 

The idea of phonics is probably as old as the alphabet – in fact, it’s the principle behind the alphabet

itself (with some exceptions of course, with Chinese being the

most notable).

The phonics method of learning language

 fits in very well with the traditional tools of learning used in

a Montessori classroom. 

The moveable alphabet is just made for phonics – the letters are

presented as individual sounds and these letters are then built up into

longer words.

Read more about Phonics in a Montessori classroom at

www.fridayschildmontessori.com