Learning+to+Read+and+Phonics

Learning to read and being read to gives children an opportunity to widen their knowledge base and use their imagination. It is also, as Susan Hill states, 'a way to communicate and share experiences with another' (2006, p.93). Children learn to read in different stages. They are usually immersed in stories and words from a very young age. Parents read to their children and show them picture books. Although they may not understand words and the meaning of the activity to begin with, they still enjoy it as it gives them one-on-one time with someone they love. Generally it is a very positive experience. They absorb the different tones of voice and the different expressions on their parents faces and associate these with the time their parents pull a book from the shelf to sit down to read it to them. This positive experience leads them to demand favourite books, so they can repeat the time and eventually they begin to recognise that what their parents are saying is linked to symbols in the book as they grow older. Phonics plays a large role in children's ability to interpret the symbols they see on a page or piece of text into sounds. According to Hill, phonics 'emphasises how spellings of words are related to sounds in systematic ways' (1999, p.8). Once children learn the phonemes for letters and combinations of letters, they can sound out parts of words to discover the sound of the whole word and begin to learn from there.