Teaching phonics and reading?

Childcare18 · 2025-10-28T14:41:05+00:00

Hello , I live in turkey with my 5 year old son and his Turkish dad. My son is in the Turkish school system which means he's still in preschool. In class he's only doing number work currently. ( He already has his numbers down and basic maths from my teaching him at home ). But I would like to start working on his reading , phonics, etc. Can anyone advise me on how I can support my son with this? Any computer, table apps? Books? Methods I can use? I don't really know where to start with it? Is it worth purchasing home schooling packages? My plan is to keep my son up to date with the UK education system too as I think we will move to the UK in the next few years. So I don't want him to be behind if we end up going. Any advice would be great ☺️

NuffSaidSam · 28/10/2025 18:48

Look up Jolly Phonics as a good introduction. This will guide you through what order to introduce the sounds and how to say them (letter sound rather than name). It will also guide you on introducing sight words or tricky words as they're sometimes called.

Teach Your Monster To Read is a fantastic app and also follows the Jolly Phonics technique i.e. introduces the sounds and sight words in the same order.

Alphablocks on Cbeebies also follows the same system and introduces the sounds in the same order.

Twinkl is website that provides teaching resources, it's used by both schools and home schoolers. You will be able to print worksheets etc. from here to support learning.

CGP workbooks are also very good and available to buy on Amazon, again they follow the curriculum on terms of what order to introduce the sounds blending etc.

Good luck!

Saracen · 28/10/2025 18:57

When your son is ready to read, he'll pick it up much faster. Most home educators don't start teaching their kids to read until they are showing signs of being quite eager to do it, which is usually rather later than UK schools introduce reading. It's a lot easier when they are seven or eight. Learning isn't linear, so if he moves to the UK at the age of nine, it won't really matter whether he'd learned to read at five or seven.

Reading English-language books to your son often will be a good way to observe whether he is starting to try to read over your shoulder, how long his attention span is for sitting and looking at books, and so on. Also, books - even simple children's books - typically include a much wider range of vocabulary and grammatical structures than children would be exposed to in everyday conversation or watching TV. For that reason, hearing books read aloud is a great way for your child to improve his knowledge base so he'll be ready to read himself. (As an example, a child whose vocabulary doesn't include the word "extraordinary" would have a hard time decoding it. Even if his phonics was up to the task, he wouldn't know whether he'd done it right and what the sentence meant. And the same for sentence structures which are common in books but rare in conversation.) To add to any reading you do with your child, audiobooks can be on in the background while he's playing with Lego or going somewhere in the car. If he has any English grandparents or other relatives who would enjoy reading to him, maybe they would like to make videos of themselves reading aloud?

My kids both learned to read without formal phonics, just by sharing books and trying to figure out the instructions to their computer games and what was written on the shopping list. I'm sure they used phonics; they just weren't taught phonics. They figured it out, just like young kids figure out grammar without having it taught to them.

However, everybody uses different approaches. The main thing is to find something your own child enjoys. Reading Eggs is a program which is quite popular with home ed families.

TheBirdintheCave · 28/10/2025 18:58

I taught my son to read using the Maverick Early Readers books set. They’ve been great.

pIum · 28/10/2025 19:04

Saracen · 28/10/2025 18:57

When your son is ready to read, he'll pick it up much faster. Most home educators don't start teaching their kids to read until they are showing signs of being quite eager to do it, which is usually rather later than UK schools introduce reading. It's a lot easier when they are seven or eight. Learning isn't linear, so if he moves to the UK at the age of nine, it won't really matter whether he'd learned to read at five or seven.

Reading English-language books to your son often will be a good way to observe whether he is starting to try to read over your shoulder, how long his attention span is for sitting and looking at books, and so on. Also, books - even simple children's books - typically include a much wider range of vocabulary and grammatical structures than children would be exposed to in everyday conversation or watching TV. For that reason, hearing books read aloud is a great way for your child to improve his knowledge base so he'll be ready to read himself. (As an example, a child whose vocabulary doesn't include the word "extraordinary" would have a hard time decoding it. Even if his phonics was up to the task, he wouldn't know whether he'd done it right and what the sentence meant. And the same for sentence structures which are common in books but rare in conversation.) To add to any reading you do with your child, audiobooks can be on in the background while he's playing with Lego or going somewhere in the car. If he has any English grandparents or other relatives who would enjoy reading to him, maybe they would like to make videos of themselves reading aloud?

My kids both learned to read without formal phonics, just by sharing books and trying to figure out the instructions to their computer games and what was written on the shopping list. I'm sure they used phonics; they just weren't taught phonics. They figured it out, just like young kids figure out grammar without having it taught to them.

However, everybody uses different approaches. The main thing is to find something your own child enjoys. Reading Eggs is a program which is quite popular with home ed families.

But if OP moves to the UK when her son is 7, he'll not only have to contend with a new school in a new country but also one in which many of his Y3 peers are reading fluently and in which he'll have to go out to interventions for the most very basic phonics. I know what you're saying - plenty of Reception children aren't ready to read but on the flipside many are. Some children finish Reception as really quite good little readers and get a lot of enjoyment from it. Great advice about language exposure.

Saracen · 28/10/2025 20:08

pIum · 28/10/2025 19:04

But if OP moves to the UK when her son is 7, he'll not only have to contend with a new school in a new country but also one in which many of his Y3 peers are reading fluently and in which he'll have to go out to interventions for the most very basic phonics. I know what you're saying - plenty of Reception children aren't ready to read but on the flipside many are. Some children finish Reception as really quite good little readers and get a lot of enjoyment from it. Great advice about language exposure.

Show quote history

Yes, that's true. I guess it depends when they might move.

Of course, another option if the parents aren't both going to be working full-time on their arrival in the UK would be starting off with a period of home education while he adjusts to life here. He could be brought up to speed with reading during that time, and enter school only when he's on a par with the others.

friskery · 29/10/2025 08:34

I used:
Alphablocks cartoons
Teach Your Monster to Read game
Oxford Owl - free online ebooks
Collins phonics activity books
Twinkl phonics youtube channel (free) and if you are prepared to pay the subscription then Twinkl have a complete phonics system with worksheets and books to dowload.

Burntt · 29/10/2025 12:16

Yeah your monster to read. Is excellent!
phonicsplay website
Oxford reading tree books. Oxford owl
£2tuition hub zoom lessons for phonics. Or learn laugh play phonics zooms

CarRecall · 29/10/2025 12:49

Primary school teacher here - the best SSP scheme I’ve taught is RWInc. Lots of YouTube videos and you can buy the resources on Amazon if you wanted to. There’s a Ruth Miskin portal that I think parents can sign up to, too. Definitely worth a look.

Muu9 · 04/11/2025 05:06

If you're in Turkey, shipping might be a problem for physical goods. Consider an online program like funnix or something printable like progressive phonics (free).

Natsku · 04/11/2025 05:32

I live abroad too so had to teach both my children to read in English and honestly Reading Eggs pretty much did it single handedly. I did also use some Biff, Chip, and Kipper books, and once they had grasped phonics I moved on to a Ladybird early readers bookset.

thornbury · 04/11/2025 05:39

Oxford Owl is a useful site, and Nessy Reading and Spelling subscription.