Teaching Phonics in Early Childhood (FutureLearn)

Intentionally and explicitly teaching the relationship between letters and sounds through play-based pedagogies is an important part of your child learning to speak, read and write. Phonics helps children listen to, identify and use different sounds that distinguish words from each other in the English language.

What is phonics, and why is phonological awareness important?
The course will begin with an introduction to phonics, explaining what exactly it is, and why it’s so important. Next, you’ll learn the best ways to teach phonics to children in the early years, including which resources to use.
You’ll gain an understanding of phonemes and phonological awareness, which is an understanding of the sound structure of words.

How to teach phonics using phonemes and graphemes
In week 2, you’ll discover some teaching strategies and models such as play-based pedagogy, which is a type of education based on open-ended play.
You’ll be introduced to some of the best activities to help teach children phonics, such as practising phonemes, graphemes and reading alphabet books. We’ll also discuss the ways belief can shape practice.

What topics will you cover?

• What is code-related literacy?
• What is phonics?
• Why is phonics important in early childhood settings?
• What are some evidence-based strategies for teaching phonics?

What will you achieve?
By the end of the course, you'll be able to...

• Describe code-related literacy, including phonics, phonemic awareness and phonological awareness
• Explain why teaching and learning code-related literacy is important
• Identify an appropriate strategy for teaching code-related literacy in early childhood settings