Skills Needed for Decoding

Here are the major skills your child needs for decoding.

Sounds and Rhymes. Rhyming teaches children about sounds in language. This helps children to identify words.
Helpful Hints:

Play rhyming games to help your child's become more aware of the sounds that make up words.

Have your child finish rhyming sentences. For example: "I like to run. It's so much ___."
Play a rhyming game. Say a word and then have your child say a word that rhymes it. Continue going back and forth trying to find a word that rhymes with the previous one.

Read rhyming books aloud. This will reinforce the concept of rhyming. Rhyming patterns will also be more familiar. Include books that play with the sounds in words, such as the books by Dr. Seuss.

Blending and segmenting. "Blending" is putting together sounds or syllables within words. "Segmenting" is breaking words down sounds or syllables.
Helpful Hints:

Use pictures to help your child with blending and segmenting. Use a picture and have your child sound out the name. Have your child tap his finger for each sound in the word. For example, show a picture of a cat and have him sound out the name and tap his fingers for each of the sounds. He would say sounds "c" "a" "t", thus the child would use 3 taps. You can use pen marks or marbles instead of tapping. (This approach is known as the Elkonin technique.)
Let your child practice counting syllables by clapping out the number of different sounds in a word. He could also use his finger to tap it out.
Play with changing words. For example, remove sounds from words to create new words. For example, removing /sun/ from suntan leaves /tan/, while subtracting the /t/ from tray leaves ray.
Practice sound games during the day for fun. For example, sound games can be played while driving in the car, or shopping in the grocery store.

Symbol/Sound correspondence. This means being able to look at a letter and know the sound that it makes. By putting all the sounds together, a word is formed.
Helpful Hints:

Teach the sounds for the alphabet by using pictures. For example, show a picture of a snake curled into the letter "s". The snake could also be wearing a sock.
Encourage your child to use their word attack skills when reading new words.

'Automatic' level reading. Children need to be able to read words without effort. This way, they can think about the meaning of what they are reading.
Helpful Hints:

Show your child how to break words down into root and suffix or prefix. For example, sadness is "sad" and "ness".
Show your child how to see chunks of letters within a word when reading. For example, "ing" is a unit. "Th" is a unit.
Encourage your child to re-read books they've read previously that are "easy" for them.
Read every night at bedtime. This makes reading a pleasant, soothing activity that you and your child will value.
Practice, practice, practice!