phonics stories

Good phonics stories should have lots of rhyming words and be quite short.

When your child starts to learn phonics she needs lots of rhyming words. Good phonics stories will have lots of rhyming words that make sense. Some phonics stories can overdo the rhyming and the story does not make sense to our adult ears. But don’t worry, because these books still help your child to read. 

Rhyming is a crucial part of reading. 

Also the phonic story should repeat many words as often as possible without making the story sound silly to our ears. Rhyming and repetition of the phonic sounds helps to implant them in your child’s mind. I like the Scholastic Phonic Readers as they are a good size, have many rhyming words that are repeated often. The drawings are very simple so they don’t distract the child from reading. 

One phonics learning system I like is the Montessori teaching reading and writing system. 

This system uses sandpaper letters that the children trace so they can learn to write the words. As the Montessori system does not use phonics stories to read. I use the Scholastic Phonics books with the sandpaper letters. I have found that system to be very effective at both reading and writing. 

Another book I have used with the sandpaper letters is Teach Your Child To Read by Michael Levin. This book has lots of rhyming and lots of phonic lists.

For more information about teaching using phonics products that I recommend, see our teach reading page.