Of all the different skills that we help children to learn when they are small, learning to read with phonics is perhaps the single most important skill that we can teach them. In fact, with or without phonics, learning to read is an integral part of the early success of any child.
No matter how intelligent a child may be in other areas of life, if they cannot read fluently then their childhood education will suffer greatly. And not just their childhood studies, but also their success in life could be hampered. The basic skill of reading is essential so that children can gain knowledge. Without knowing how to read, they would not be able to read books and other reading material and their education would thus suffer. This is why learning to read with phonics is so vital.
Small stories for kids and children poems are a great way to begin your child’s early reading program. After learning the alphabet, they are taught how to do sound association of different letters and syllables. But there are so many exceptions to the rule in the English language that it can often confuse young readers. For instance, DO and GO would sound the same if you read them phonetically. But in reality they don’t. Thus, simply learning to read with phonics may not be enough. It is imperative that a lot of reading practice be given to children, and only then will they be able to differentiate between different words and sounds.
Downloading a story online, or providing access to children poems, is a good way to get your child to start reading. While there are some children who will pick up reading very fast and will be good at it in no time, most kids are not like that. As I mentioned, there are more exceptions to the rule in the English language than there are rules. Thus, it is not even fair to blame children when they cannot pick up the language immediately. The only thing we can do is to ensure that they have a lot of children poems and stories available to them that will help them to become proficient at reading.
Learning to read with phonics will also help your child to read big words that they have not come across before. When a child sees a big and unfamiliar word, they simply cannot read the word in its entirety. But if you teach them how to break down the word syllable by syllable, and how to read phonetically, then even the biggest words will not pose too great a challenge to them. Thus, make sure to keep downloading a new story online regularly and also providing children poems to your kids.