– Most parents want to raise well-educated children but, to reach this goal, there are some fundamental principles they need to know about the process of learning to read. Research has shown that synthetic phonics is the best way to teach children to read, even if many parents themselves did not use this method to learn to read. Babies begin by vocalizing with “noises” and they will naturally and automatically start trying to repeat the sounds and words they hear.

– However, unlike speaking, reading is not an innate skill. Young children don’t need to be taught how to speak but they do need to be taught how to read. In some parts of the world, there are still societies that don’t read and write at all, two skills that develop over a long period of time, in different languages. In order to learn to read, children have first to speak and develop auditory discrimination abilities to identify the different sounds of the speech. With only 26 letters, the English language has 44 commonly used sounds and a rather rare complexity on this level. One more good reason to use the most effective learning methods, like phonics.

Young Girl Reading by George Goodwin Kilburne (Wikimedia Commons)

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