It is estimated that there are at least a half million words in the English language.

So, we have a choice when it comes to teaching reading: memorize half a million words, or teach phonics!

Sometimes learning English feels like trying to beat down a great big wall. Well, there is a door in that wall that you can pass through, and the key to that door is…phonics. Phonics is a method of teaching reading which deals with the relationship between letters and sounds. One cannot learn to read effectively without an understanding of the relationship between the letters and letter sounds, and how they connect to form the words we see in printed text.

Phonics is a way to break the code of how English words are spelled and pronounced. When we teach phonics, we help children build a solid foundation for English language study. Once a child learns the 26 letters with their 44 sounds and 70 common spellings, they have the tools they need to read words, whether they have ever seen them or not.

Now, we said that there are estimated to be at least a half million words in the English language, and that learning phonics is the key to mastering these words. But can phonics really help you with every English word? No, and that is why, alongside with phonics instruction, it is equally important to teach a collection of commonly-used English words that do not play by the rules of phonics. These other words are called sight words, and that will be the topic of the next WeChat article in this series.