Today, seeing a two-year-old navigating through games, videos, and images on an iPad is not a surprising scene. Three and four-year-old kids are already taking pictures with a cellphone and editing them with advanced software. A seven-year-old is already quite apt in using Facebook as well as in making a Powerpoint presentation without any help. With the great impact of modern technology on children at present, it’s no wonder a lot of them are quite addicted to gadgets and are astonishingly very good in using these things. Thus, you should not be stunned to see a lot of available apps on English phonics for kids. After all, both parents and teachers are now utilizing these developments to get kids started on learning how to read.
YouTube Videos
There are tons of educational videos on YouTube that aim to use phonics in teaching kids how to read. If you try searching with the phrase “English phonics for kids”, you will be faced with numerous results that exhibit videos of interesting phonics songs with animation as well as stories on phonics that show actual pages with illustrations and come with voice over narration and even sound effects. You may also consider going over the videos that show reading teachers giving lessons as if they are actually in front of children. These are a great alternative to actually implementing the lesson yourself, especially since there are kids who are naturally drawn more to TV monitors and computer screens. At the same time, you get to rest from time to time while a virtual substitute takes your place.
Even though young kids today are capable of navigating through the various videos on YouTube and making their own choices as to which ones to view, you have to make sure that you’ll be staying beside them the entire time in order to closely monitor what they are watching. It’s also helpful if you provide reinforcements after each video has been seen. You can follow up the viewing with an exciting phonics activity in which a particular child or group of kids will be interested in.
Educational Apps
Whether you have a smart phone, an electronic tablet, or both, you should definitely make the most of such gadgets for the benefit of your child. If you want the child to learn how to read, try going over the different educational apps on English phonics so that you download and use them to pique and sustain interest while providing a modern method of learning.
There is a vast array of educational apps that aim to teach reading through phonics. You will find simple flash card types of apps that come with voice-overs of the alphabet being read and the repeated utterance of their corresponding sounds. You will also find several puzzles in which a child has to match certain letters to blank spaces that are shaped similarly. As soon as he or she touches the letter on the screen, a voice says the letter and the sound. There are also more advanced variations that already present CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words and even four-letter words. Each letter moves across the screen and attaches to the previous others until a word is formed. As this happens, the letter sounds are uttered and the word is then read at the end. Sometimes, there are even voice prompts that ask the child to repeat after it.
There is a multitude of game apps too that will surely entice kids to actively participate in this learning process via modern technology. English phonics for kids is used as the basic concept behind the game that aims to enhance reading skills. For example, one game might be a quiz type asking the child to touch a letter with a particular sound. Another game might involve popping balloons wherein letters come out and sounds are pronounced. There are also those that seem more complex, such as asking a child to create words in a family set by dragging letters across the screen. The sounds of the letters are emphasized in the process.
Indeed children today are very fortunate to have these contemporary and state-of-the-art educational methods and materials to help teach them how to read more quickly and effectively while having fun.