Why Teaching Phonics Isn’t Enough: A Complete Approach to Teaching Reading at Home

Discover why teaching phonics alone doesn’t ensure reading success. This includes tips for teaching reading at home without stress!

If you’re feeling unsure about teaching your child to read, take a deep breath—you’re in good company. So many parents ask themselves, “Am I really qualified to do this?” The truth is, if you’ve already helped your child learn to walk and talk, you absolutely have what it takes to guide them into reading.

Believe it or not, the process of learning to read isn’t as complicated as it may seem. In fact, it has a lot in common with how your child learned to speak—through simple, consistent steps and lots of encouragement.

As a former first-grade teacher and a homeschool mom, I’ve helped around 200 children learn how to read. I’ve seen it all—from huge bursts of excitement to moments of total frustration. And I want to let you in on a little secret: It doesn’t have to be overwhelming.

In this post, I’m pulling back the curtain on how to teach reading. I’ll walk you through a simple, step-by-step approach that truly works—one that keeps both you and your child smiling along the way. Too many reading programs rush kids into sounding out words before kids are developmentally ready; that’s like trying to run before crawling.

Instead, join me as I share four simple steps that make reading gentle and natural, one step at a time, just like teaching your children to talk.

So, if you’re wondering where to start or just need a boost of confidence, you’re in the right place. You’ve got this—and I’ll be right here to guide you.

Step 1: Build a Strong Foundation with Concepts of Print.

“Concepts of print” might sound like a fancy educational term, but it’s really quite simple. This is the right foundation to how children understand books and language. It’s where their reading journey begins—and the best part is, it’s incredibly simple to teach.

These early skills include:

• Learning how to hold a book
• Finding the book’s title
• Understanding the role of the author and illustrator
• Knowing where the text starts and how to read from left to right
• Recognizing punctuation marks and knowing what to do when they see one

You don’t need a curriculum to teach these things. Just sit together every day and read picture books aloud. As you do, point things out casually and consistently. Over time, your child will start to absorb it all naturally.

Go Beyond the Basics.

Once your child begins to grasp how books work, you can move into deeper conversations while reading together.

• Make Predictions: Before reading the words, ask your child to look at the pictures and guess what might happen next.
• Fill in the Blanks with Picture Cues: For example, if you’re reading Messy Bessy, you might pause at a sentence or phrase like:
  • “Look at your room, Messy Bessy.
  • See colors on the wall
  • Books on the ____”
  • Let your child look at the picture to figure out the missing word.
• Play with Rhymes: When you come to a rhyming word at the end of a sentence, stop and let your child fill in the rhyming word.
• Practice Retelling: After reading a story, ask your child to tell you what happened. Help them break it down into the beginning, middle, and end.

All of these activities build critical early reading skills in a way that feels fun and natural—no worksheets required!

Use What You Have.

You don’t need a formal curriculum for this stage. Pull books off your own bookshelf or take a trip to the library. We even have a free booklist broken down by age level that you can download to get started.

We’ve also got a themed list in Backyard and Beyond. All of the books listed here go along with the lessons you’ll be learning about God’s creation. 

Choose High-Quality Books.

One important note: Not all books are created equally. In fact, I’d suggest that you stay away from beginning readers during this part of the process. Look for books that have incredible language and beautiful pictures. Beginning readers tend to be a bit forced and manufactured. You might also check out Grace and Truth books for a reliable selection of Christian literature.

When Should You Start?

The answer is simple: Start now. As soon as your child can sit on your lap, read to them. And even before that, read while they play nearby. It’s never too early to start building a love for books. Even if they’re wiggly or distracted, keep at it. Just hearing your voice and seeing the pages turn is laying the groundwork for a love of reading.

And don’t worry if they’re not sitting still quite yet. You can still build that foundation by reading aloud while they:

• Play with blocks on the floor
• Color or draw at the table
• Ride along in the car
• Wind down before bed

Reading aloud becomes part of their world—and soon enough, they’ll be reaching for books on their own. Even ten minutes a day can make a big difference. It’s never too early, and it’s definitely never too late. Every book you read together helps build a confident, curious, joyful reader.

Step 2: Play With Words!

Doesn’t that sound fun? The fancy reading teacher name for this is phonemic awareness, but don’t let that intimidate you. It simply means helping your child hear and play with the sounds in words—which is exactly what you did when they were learning to talk! You taught them to talk by repeating simple words like “mama” and “ball”. Now it’s time to play with those words in a new way to prepare your child for reading.

Start with Rhyming.

Rhyming isn’t just cute—it has incredible value. It helps children recognize sound patterns, which is essential for learning how to read.

Here are a few easy ways to work rhyming into your day:

• Fill in the blanks while reading rhyming books like Chicka Chicka Boom Boom or Hop on Pop. Pause at the end of a line and let your child guess the rhyming word.
• Sing rhyming songs, even silly or made-up ones! Nonsense words are great practice too.

Try a chant like this:

Willaby Wallaby We,

An elephant sat on me.

Willaby Wallaby Woo,

An elephant sat on you…

(Keep going with names your child knows!)

• Sing favorites like “Down By the Bay” by Raffi—it’s full of creative rhymes. If you don’t know the tune, a quick Google search will help you find it.

Play With Vowel Sounds.

Songs like Apples and Bananas are perfect for helping kids stretch and hear different vowel sounds:

I like to eat, eat, eat apples and bananas

I like to ate, ate, ate apples and bananas

I like to eet, eet, eet eapples and benenes…

It’s silly, it’s catchy, and it’s a sneaky way to build foundational reading skills.

Take Words Apart.

Beyond rhyming, you want to help kids break words into smaller sounds. This helps them develop “phonemic awareness,” or the ability to hear the individual sounds in words—a huge step toward becoming a reader.

Here are a few fun ways to do that:

• Sound it out slowly: “What word do you hear? C-A-T?” (cat!)
• Talk about beginning sounds: “What sound do you hear at the beginning of puppy?”
• Focus on ending sounds: “What sound do you hear at the end of mouse?”

You can also play blending games: “If I say s and un, what’s the word?”

The best part? You don’t need to sit at a table or open a workbook to teach this. All of these games can happen:

• In the car on the way to an errand
• While your child is in the bathtub
• During a walk around the neighborhood
• At bedtime, while snuggling on the couch

You’re simply making language fun and playful.

Want an Easy Button?

If you’re looking for a done-for-you guide, our Beginnings Reading Curriculum includes weekly activities designed to help you “play with words” in a simple and structured way, while keeping things fun and gentle.

Step 3: Introduce Sight Words.

By this point, your child has likely started to recognize a few words. They know these words because they’ve seen them often, and they just remember what the word looks like or what letters it contains. These are called sight words.

Sometimes, sight words are words that break the rules and are difficult to sound out (think of words like said or was). But more often, they are simply words that kids come across more frequently (like the, and, or you). 

Sight words are vital to your child’s reading success. While teaching phonics plays a huge role, it’s not the whole picture. In fact, research shows that only 80% of kids can even learn using phonics. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Use both strategies together to give your child a stronger reading foundation. Teaching phonics alone isn’t enough

How to Start Teaching Sight Words

Start simple. As sight words come up in your reading time, begin to point them out. Over time, you can build a small set of flashcards and incorporate fun ways to review them.

Here are a few easy, playful ideas:

• Flash card games – Keep them light and fun!
• Go Fish – Make two sets of sight word cards and play a round.
• Memory Match – Turn sight word recognition into a simple matching game.
• Word Hunt – Ask your child to find certain sight words in their books.

You could also use the DOLCH sight word list. These are 220 sight words every child should know. I like to check my child’s progress at three key points during the year:

• At the beginning of the year (when they know very few)
• In the middle of the year (to see growth)
• At the end of the year (to celebrate how far they’ve come!)

You can download a free list from a variety of sources online.

When it comes to working with your kids on sight words, you don’t need to drill or stress. Keep it playful and positive; let them have fun!

Step 4: Teaching Phonics

Admit it—you didn’t expect teaching phonics to be the last resort, did you?

Teaching phonics is often the first thing that comes to mind when we think about teaching a child to read. And while it does have its place, it works best when you have laid the foundation of the three steps we’ve already talked about: concepts of print, playing with words, and learning sight words.

Phonics is a systematic method of teaching children how to connect letters to sounds and blend those sounds together to form words. It’s structured, helpful, and powerful—but only when the child is ready.

If you’ve already been practicing phonemic awareness through word games and songs, phonics will feel like a natural next step. It’s simply giving names and shapes (letters!) to the sounds your child already hears.

What Curriculum Should You Use?

I’ve tried everything—from a resource promising to teach my child to read in a short number of days, to a giant book from a Christian school publisher. And here’s what I’ve learned.

For some kids, anything will work. For others, you may have to be willing to try a few different things. Don’t feel bad about that!

A Reading Program I Recommend

I personally love a simple phonetic approach like Beginnings. Here’s why:

• It starts each week with a Bible study, grounding reading in God’s Word.
• Focuses on learning letters and sounds at a gentle pace
• Includes sight word practice, phonemic awareness games, and hands-on letter tile activities
• Comes with a book list to read aloud and a variety of learning activities for each letter

Once your child has mastered the basics in Beginnings, they can move on to Connections, which lives up to its name by helping children connect letters to form words, explore word families, learn blends, and more.

• Start Beginnings in Kindergarten.
• Move to Connections in First Grade.

Of course, always move at the pace that’s right for your child. The beauty of homeschooling and working one-on-one is that you can slow down, speed up, or circle back as needed.

Tips for Teaching Reading (Without the Stress)

Let’s talk about what really works when it comes to teaching your child to read, not just what sounds good in a textbook.

1. Keep Lessons Short and Sweet: Work on each step for 10-15 minutes at a time, no more than 4-5 times a day. Beginnings and Connections are written with this in mind. If you choose something else, just look for a curriculum that focuses on the basics. Busy work is not only unnecessary, but it can also be very discouraging and even frustrating for some kids. 
2. Focus on Reading First: Don’t pile on other subjects. Focus on reading until your child has mastered that. Other subjects can wait.
3. Build Confidence Through Independent Practice: When they are practicing the reading in their lessons, let them practice FIRST without you. This will allow them to build confidence, and it will teach independent learning. As a bonus, when you read together, it will be much less frustrating as most people don’t perform well under pressure.
4. Review Daily: Assign a review every day. This could be a book your child has already read or even a page in their reading book. Practice builds fluency. Experts say at least 70-80% of reading should be old material so kids can build fluency and comprehension.  
5. Don’t Drop the Early Steps: Continue Steps 1 and 2 while working on steps 3 and 4. Some of your materials won’t look like a traditional book, and that’s ok. It’s part of the process to read words on worksheets or on a single page. This won’t be an issue because you are still going to be using “real books” during other parts of your day. Don’t skip this part once your child begins phonics.
6. Make it Hands-On. Make it a hands-on process. Have your child sit with you and hold their book. Have them point to words or follow along as you are reading. You can find fun pointers at the store for this, too. When you are making words, use letter tiles and move the tiles as you are making the sounds. This makes the learning more concrete as you are using more than one of your senses to learn.
7. Don’t Force It: DON’T FORCE THIS! I can not stress this enough. Not all kids are ready to read. The average age is 8 years old. That means HALF of the kids are eight and above. Let that sink in. If your 5-year-old would rather catch frogs in muddy puddles, let him. Focus on steps 1 and 2 and give him a bit more time. If your child shows interest in reading and gets stuck, slow down. Go back and review to build confidence. DON’T push forward.  
8. Try “Co-Reading”: Co-read materials–have your child read words they do know as you are reading books aloud or even in their school work. This also helps build confidence. It’s one of my favorite strategies.
9. Let Reading Shape the Whole Day: Make reading the focal point of your whole day. A typical day of reading for a beginning reader should look like this: 
   • Morning time book box
   • Reading Instruction
   • Read Aloud time, you can read aloud to your whole family too. But make sure your child who is learning to read gets some one-on-one time to help them learn concepts of print.
   • Afternoon book box time
10. Track Progress (Not Perfection): Use the primary planner to track progress. You can do this at the beginning, middle, and end of the year. Don’t expect much at the beginning. Be sure to tell your child he shouldn’t know these things yet. It will be so much fun to see how much they grow!

When it comes to teaching your child to read, remember to enjoy this journey with your child. Take your time. Make it fun, hands-on, and gentle. If, at the end of it all, your child still loves to learn and loves to read, you’ve done it right.

That’s the recipe for reading success.