What Is Phonics?
To put it simply, phonics is the method of teaching children to read, which focuses on the individual sounds of letters, or groups of letters, and blending them together. A word is broken down and sounded out (decoded), and then blended together to reveal what the word says.
Advantages Of Phonics
• Many words can be taught at one time in a phonic family. Here's an example of a phonic family: words that end with "at" like rat, cat, sat, etc.
• Phonics equips readers with a strategy to sound out unfamiliar words.
• It helps children to develop spelling skills, and cuts down on them guessing at a word when attempting to read it.
What Are Sight Words?
Sight words are words that a reader recognises instantly. They form the basis of the whole-word approach to teaching reading. In this approach, a word is perceived as a whole unit, without analysis of its subword parts. Young readers are encouraged to recognise the whole word, rather than sound out the individual letters ...

Objection 1: No Proof That Early Learning Works
To some parents, the concept of "early learning" --- teaching children at a very young age using specific methods and techniques --- may seem like a modern myth, with little scientific evidence to back it up. Yes, one may occasionally read in the newspapers about the child prodigy who could read lengthy books, solve difficult math questions, or play music like a virtuoso, but isn't this more the exception rather than the rule?
Anecdotal Proof
Scour the world wide web, and it is easy to discover otherwise. If nothing else, the bountiful video footage posted online of many young children reading, doing math and playing a musical instrument is proof positive that early learning is a lot more common and successful than some parents may imagine it to be. The Internet community of parents teems with personal testimonies and anecdotal accounts of how their children have benefitted in different ways from their efforts to teach them early.
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To help you get started, we have put together a list of some of the more popular early reading methods out there to give you a grasp of their salient principles and differences. You may discover that a particular one matches your child's learning style and preferences perfectly, or even that a combination, rather than any single one, of these techniques are far more effective in teaching the written word to your baby.
Glenn Doman's Flashcard Method
Glenn Doman is a physical therapist who developed an approach to treating brain-damaged children in the 1950s in the United States. As his research progressed, he found out that the same type of accelerated learning method he used with brain-injured children can be applied on normal children. In fact, he believes that all babies have a genius potential that if properly developed, can well exceed that of Leonardo da Vinci and Albert Einstein. To draw out this genius potential, children should be appropriately stimulated from infancy by their ...

Teaching English has become a popular way for native speakers to see the world and earn a living at the same time, but it's not exactly easy! If you've never taught before, you might not be sure how to start. When you're trying to teach English to non-native speakers, watch your idioms, slow down your speech patterns and use basic vocabulary that's easy to understand to help your students become successful. Lastly, don't forget about classroom management! Even if you're teaching adults, it's important that you have adequate classroom management skills so that your class isn't running the show.
Watch The Idioms When You're Trying To Teach English
When you're a teacher, it's vital that you watch what you say carefully. Saying things like 'It's time to hit the books,' or 'This homework should be a piece of cake' will likely be met with some serious confusion. Do you really want your class to slap their textbooks or bring you a piece of cake the next day? If not, it's important to watch ...

Preschool age children typically have a great deal of natural energy. For them it is a period of incredible creativity, imagination, curiosity, and play. They reinvent the world, try on new roles, and struggle to play their parts in it. The stages of child development often found in textbooks should not be viewed as strict guidelines for preschool or any level of development. Rather there is one basic rule you should remember about child development that will save you countless hours of worry.
The fact that a child passes through a particular developmental stage is always more important than the age of the child when he or she does it. In the long run, it really doesn't matter whether your child learn to walk at 10 months or 15 months as long he learns to walk. Every child has in him a timetable for growth - - a pathway unique to him.
Recognize the Difference in Your Children
Growth is not static or follows open progression. It can be three steps forward and two steps back before ...