Why Teach Letter Sounds?

We spend a lot of time making sure young children learn to identify letters by name, but being able to identify a letter by name doesn’t actually help a young child read! In order to decode, readers need to learn the SOUND that the letter makes. Then they string those sounds together into words and, BOOM, reading happens.

Here’s three ways you can help your little ones learn letter sounds:

❓Ask what sound they hear at the beginning of a word (What sound do you hear at the beginning of banana? That’s right! Banana starts with /b/!)
📣 When they name a letter, ask them what sound it makes. (Oooh. That is an M. what sound does M make? M says /m/!)
🔎 Hunt for sounds….Can you find something that begins with /d/. Each time say the SOUND, not the letter name.

Yes -- letters often make multiple sounds, especially vowels (a has three different sounds) -- start with the short vowels like /a/ as in apple, /u/ as in umbrella, /i/ as in iguana, /o/ as in octopus, and /e/ as in egg.

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