For Parents
Help your child strengthen their literacy skills at any stage of development.
Phonics Education for Families
Your family plays a big role in helping your child learn to read and write. With the right phonics activities at home, you can support your child's literacy development and academic success. The more you understand how and why phonics instruction works, the better you can facilitate effective and meaningful learning experiences with your family.
To help your child practice phonics at home, read our insights for parents below! You can also browse our phonics program reviews for more.
Science of Reading Legislation: A State-by-State Overview
Over the past five years, 42 states and the District of Columbia have passed laws or adopted policies requiring schools to teach reading using…
Read articleDyslexia Myths That Are Still Hurting Kids
If misinformation about dyslexia were harmless, this article wouldn’t need to exist. But the myths still circulating in schools, pediatric offices,…
Read articleThe Dyslexia-Phonics Connection: Why Structured Literacy Is Non-Negotiable
If you’re reading this because something feels off with your child’s reading, trust that instinct. Roughly one in five kids in any classroom shows…
Read articleIEP Goals and Phonics: What to Ask For and Why
If you’ve already sat through an IEP meeting and walked out feeling like the reading goals were soft, vague, or weirdly disconnected from what your…
Read articleHow To Use Phoneme-Grapheme Mapping at Home
When your child writes “sip” instead of “ship,” they’re not making a careless mistake. They’re missing a small but important skill. They haven’t yet…
Read articleSight Words and Phonics: Friends, Not Enemies
If you’ve spent any time in early literacy circles, you’ve probably noticed something strange: people argue about sight words. One camp says…
Read articleWord Sorting: The Low-Tech Phonics Strategy with Big Results
Among kindergarten teachers, word sorting holds a quiet kind of reverence. It asks for nothing more than a small pile of word cards and a child…
Read articleDictation as a Phonics Tool: Why Writing Reinforces Reading
Most parents and teachers think of reading and writing as separate skills taught at different times of day. Reading comes first, the thinking goes,…
Read articleDecodable vs. Leveled Readers: Which Belongs in Your Child’s Hands
Walk into any kindergarten classroom, and you will see two very different books being handed to children learning to read. One says, “Sam can tap.…
Read articleFrequently asked questions
When should parents worry about reading progress?
Concern is warranted when difficulty is persistent across time and settings, especially after a child has had regular instruction and still struggles with core decoding behaviors.
Does slower progress always mean dyslexia?
No. Slower progress can have many causes. A pattern of persistent difficulty despite good instruction is a signal to assess further, not an automatic diagnosis.
What can I do at home to help?
Short, consistent practice helps most — reading together daily, playing with sounds, and using simple activities like phoneme-grapheme mapping to connect sounds and letters.
Related Sections
Phonics 101
Core concepts, sequencing, and the instructional foundations behind effective phonics teaching.
Explore Phonics 101 →
Phonics Skills
Individual decoding skills from letter sounds and CVC words through vowel teams and syllable types.
Explore Skills →
Struggling Readers
Intervention, dyslexia-informed support, multilingual considerations, and progress monitoring.
Explore Support →