The Best Phonics Curriculum for Homeschoolers

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I've been homeschooling my neurodivergent and dyslexic children for five full years now, and if there is one thing I have learned it is this: The slow and steady method of teaching phonics is truly the best way to help build strong reading skills in children.

There is huge debate within the US at the moment - with many states going through a curricular upheaval as teachers are required to move away from a so-called "whole language" model and learn to teach phonetics to their students. This is a difficult process, especially because most teachers were given poor reading training that flowed out of Columbia Teacher's College. As a trusted institution, many blindly accepted the idea that such a place would be the forefront of accurate instruction practice, and a dependable resource for teachers and schools across the country.

Columbia Teacher's College spread the "whole language" model of teaching reading, and while I won't get into the deep specifics of it in this post (though you can find out more here), it's mainly based on teaching prolific sight words and using a process called "3-cueing" to help children gather context from the text they are reading so that they can guess at words that might not be introduced to them yet. This method promised extensive results, with higher test scores, and most importantly children who would love reading.

(this is just a stock photo, not a picture of teachers using the whole language method)

Having relied on this method of instruction for almost 3 decades (and many decades before that being used to experiment with variations of sight-reading models) our country is facing a bitter truth: there is no quick magic fix to teaching a child how to read. Relying on sight word based instruction results in children who cannot functionally read unless they have been taught every word in a section of text. While they may maintain a catalogue of words that they know and recognize, and that catalogue can certainly grow, sight reading based programs ultimately fail to produce strong readers because they believe that strong readers can be created without knowing the code of our language.

That code is what we call phonics, and children who are given consistent instruction in phonics have two abilities that children taught with other methods do not:

1. They know how to decode new words so that they can confidently read a text (even if there are mispronunciations).

2. They know how to encode words so that they can confidently write new creations of text (even if there might be grammatical errors).

This is the basis of real literacy. The foundational skills that enable children to grow into strong readers. Now, those who criticize phonics-first reading instruction claim that it is boring, that children don't develop a love of reading because they're stuck decoding words and never given actual text to engage them. They claim that by focusing on phonetic instruction the children will never develop the drive to read on their own. Many people lately are crying out, a mere year after states have begun mandating phonetic based instruction, that "phonics has failed!" in big bold headlines. And the main complaint, the main criticism, that is leveled as proof?

Children are being instructed with "nonsense" words. These are words that follow phonetic principles but have no actual meaning in the English language.

There are a couple of reasons that nonsense words are taught to children, and they are actually kind of important.

Reason One: Nonsense words are necessary to teach phonetics to children who have been given "whole-language"/sight-reading based instruction. These children recognize so many actual words that those words cannot be used to teach children phonetic rules and decoding skills. Nonsense words give them the ability to practice the new skills they are learning, and eventually transition into real words, once children have learned the decoding skills they need.

Reason Two: Nonsense words allow children to play with phonetic principles, and to practice spelling in creative ways. This prepares them to work on decoding larger unfamiliar words that they will inevitably encounter as they read through more complex works of literature. Because phonetic instruction doesn't rely on teaching children every possible word they might encounter, children are bound to encounter words that they don't recognize. By breaking the words into syllables, and then decoding the syllables, children have the skills to read complex words without having previous exposure.

In reality, most of the world of books is filled with nonsense words, and words that have fallen into disuse that readers of all ages might not recognize.

Here are some nonsense words that are in books and poems that I have read:

• Kelsier

• Gallumphing

• Jasnah

• Burbled

• Koloss

• Frumious

Do you recognize any of them? Words 1, 3, and 5 are nonsense words used in Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere books, from Stormlight Archives and the Mistborn series.

Words 2, 4, and 6 are from a famous "nonsense poem", written by none other than Lewis Carroll, author of Alice in Wonderland. The poem, "The Jabberwocky" uses a variety of nonsense words to create a descriptive setting in which a young boy overcomes a fearsome Jabberwocky. Writers use nonsense words all the time, especially in genres like Fantasy and Science Fiction. Knowing how to decode nonsense words becomes a very real world skill once readers begin to enter those realms.

I've been bombarded for weeks now with articles touting headlines like "phonics has failed!" or "emphasis on phonics leads to joyless reading!", with gloomy doomsday authors who pronounce a dull and lifeless glaze in the eyes, a hatred of reading, and the fall into depravity of all children who are taught phonics.

This, of course, is more nonsensical than the nonsense words that they decry. Any subject can be made suitably boring when enough metrics and oversight are added transformed into the main focus. When children are given endless lists of words to read without ever being given stories to read and then inflicted with the usual bouts of high-stakes testing they naturally will become bored. But to reduce phonics instruction to just that is ridiculous.

For all the teachers and pundits who are worried and lamenting about the impending phonics-apocalypse: take heart. All is not lost. Homeschooling families have been using phonics-based instruction for years and there is a basic formula that most of us use to create a literature rich reading environment.

Language Arts instruction (or as IEW would rephrase it the Art of Language) typically uses a variety of sources to help build up different aspects of literacy, such as:

1. Books read out loud by parents. Most homeschooling families have a drive to avoid what they might call fluffy literature, often referred to as "twaddle". They are drawn to classical literature for all ages, and rarely do they offer books that are dumbed down or use overly simplistic vocabulary.

2. Phonics instruction takes place in a variety of ways. Word lists, moveable alphabets, matching sounds to images, spelling games (a good one for making funny nonsense words!), phonetic books, and more are used to bring reading to life for children.

3. Copy-work for handwriting and spelling. The child is given a portion of text to write down, and the parent goes through it to make sure the child can read each word, and understand what is being said (vocabulary building). The child will write the sentence several times a day through the week, and on the last day will put in their very best effort to write it as beautifully as they can and illustrate the page. This is posted up in the house somewhere, and the process begins again.

4. Spelling out loud. Reading is the process of decoding text, but spelling is the process of encoding text, and one of the best ways to do this is by practicing spelling words out loud. Where copy-work gives children the ability to practice writing, spelling out loud helps children to begin to put words together in their brains using the individual letters and letter pairings (phonemes and graphemes for those who like the technical jargon).

5. Listening to stories and texts read by parents. Yes, I know this is just number 1 rephrased, but it is so important! Phonics gives children the tools and skills they need to read independently, but parents who read engaging literature out loud and put down the book at the very most exciting bit are the ones who drive a child's desire to read on their own. Once children realize that they don't need to wait to find out what happens in a story if they can read on their own and sneak the book behind their parents back, it's game over. They've caught the bug and it will never let go.
   

It seems parents are always on the search for the best phonics curriculum for homeschoolers. One method of reading instruction that I love is a program called "Reading Better Together" by Sarah Miller. I wrote a detailed review of the program here and I was highly impressed with the concept. Now that my family has used it for several months I'm even more in love with the process! The basic premise of this curriculum is to have parents or teachers read the left page of the book and the child to read the right page. The curriculum comes with full instruction on how to teach the child to use and build upon each phonetic principle, and then the books for that week contain stories that use those principles and words for the pages the children read. This method uses some limited sight words that often don't follow phonetic principles like the word "said" being pronounced "sed" rather than "sayd".

My kids love being able to read along with me and help me complete the story! It moves them from being a passive participant in reading to an active role in moving the storyline along. Because parents are reading with them the story can be more complex than it would be if the child was reading on their own, which leads to more interesting reading!

Yes, I am very shamelessly plugging an affiliate link, but I have seen how this has changed my children's perspective on reading. My children have dyslexia, with a slow processing speed to understand what they read, which can mean that reading is a laborious task (especially on hard days). By using this method of "Mom reads the left page, child read the right" we're able to move through a story without getting bored, and I'm able to model oral reading skills like inflection and pacing. I've even started using this with my more established reader to help him move faster through storylines. This is a fantastic program with great activities built in to help solidify skills for children, and it can be used at a slower or faster pace if necessary.

Phonetic reading instruction doesn't have to be dull, lifeless, boring drudgery. Programs like Reading Better Together are a perfect step for families who want strong readers who love to cozy up with a good book. If you'd like to try Reading Better Together, then check out this free Spring Reading Activities freebie offered by Sarah!