The ultimate goal of teachers and educators is to teach successfully. The ability to do so starts with the competency of the teacher; however, as every educator knows, to successfully implant knowledge in the minds of students’ additional tools are needed beyond the passion and skills of the person standing at the front of the class. When it comes to teaching phonics to young students, it helps to have a credible phonics program for kindergarten.

A Research-Based Phonics Program Can Help in Teaching

Teaching phonics to kindergarten students is always a challenge given the attention spans of children that age. As a result, phonics instruction can vary classroom to classroom, as teachers strive to customize the learning environment to the students being taught. Getting the best out of your phonics instruction time requires following best practices and implementing a research-based phonics program for kids. Here are a few tips to help make that happen:

• Start by identifying the goals of your program. In simple terms, there’s no point using a map if you don’t have a destination in mind. It’s important to take a hard look at what you want your students to learn and remember before commencing the teaching of any program. Using a phonics program for kindergarten is only beneficial if you have clearly defined expectations.
• Determine what the tools and metrics will be that you are going to use to measure your success. You will need to have a clear measure for the way students can show they’re understanding of what is being taught. This is a critical step towards measuring outcome.
• Develop a plan that incorporates the research-based phonics program and the foundational learning activities you hope to use to achieve your desired results. Each learning experience can be built on the same pillars, but each can still offer a variety of learning experiences. This is a key to keeping young students engaged. While repetition and frequency of reinforcement are helpful, doing the same thing repeatedly is one sure way to see attention start to fade away. Try using an online phonics program for kindergarten, as well as phonic manipulatives such as flashcards, magnetic letters, and phonic dominoes.
• Combine a variety of auditory and oral activity. This is a great introduction to your programming and a wonderful way to hook students into your phonics lessons. It also helps students gain clarity when it comes to the correlation between sounds and letters.

Incorporating Essential Skills Phonics Programs into the Classroom

Teaching students the association between letters and the sounds they make is the principle behind phonics instruction. Students respond to these lessons at different speeds and different levels of understanding. For a phonics program for kids to be effective, the instruction must be explicit and engaging. By using the evidence-based learning programs developed by Essential Skills, teachers can immediately start implementing more effective phonics instruction. Essential Skills is more than just educational software – we offer a system that can be incorporated into any curriculum to help educate students of all ages.

Learn more about Essential Skills research-based phonics programs today.