For Parents

Help your child strengthen their literacy skills at any stage of development.

Your family plays a big role in helping your child learn to read and write. With the right phonics activities at home, you can support your child’s literacy development and academic success. The more you understand how and why phonics instruction works, the better you can facilitate effective and meaningful learning experiences with your family. 

To help your child practice phonics at home, read our insights for parents below! You can also browse our phonics program reviews for more.

Phonics Education for Families

Structured literacy certification is more than a badge. Here is what the credential requires and why it matters for your child's reader.

What Structured Literacy Certification Means

The phrase “structured literacy certified” is showing up everywhere right now: on tutoring profiles,...

Not sure if your child's school phonics program is working? Here is what to look for and the right questions to ask.

How to Evaluate Your Child’s School Phonics Program

Most parents trust that their child’s school is using a good reading program. That...

Hands-on phonics tools that build real reading skills, from sound boxes to letter tiles.

Phonics Manipulatives That Beat Any Screen

A set of letter tiles. A tray of sand. A stack of index cards....

What makes a phonics app worth downloading? A parent's guide to evidence-based features.

What to Look for in a Phonics App Before You Download

There are thousands of phonics and reading apps available for kids right now, and...

Audiobooks build vocabulary and motivation, but can they teach phonics? What parents and teachers need to know.

Audiobooks and Phonics: Helpful Supplement or Decoding Shortcut?

Ask a room full of parents whether audiobooks “count” as reading, and you’ll get...

AI reading tutors are everywhere. What the research says about whether they help kids learn phonics.

AI Tutoring Apps and Phonics: Promising or Problematic?

AI-powered reading tools have moved from novelty to a common fixture in classrooms. By...

Over 40 states have passed science of reading laws. Here's what they require and what to ask your school.

Science of Reading Legislation: A State-by-State Overview

Over the past five years, 42 states and the District of Columbia have passed...

Six dyslexia myths still circulating in schools, and the research that proves them wrong.

Dyslexia Myths That Are Still Hurting Kids

If misinformation about dyslexia were harmless, this article wouldn’t need to exist. But the...

Dyslexia affects 1 in 5 kids. Structured literacy is the phonics approach that changes outcomes when started early.

The Dyslexia-Phonics Connection: Why Structured Literacy Is Non-Negotiable

If you’re reading this because something feels off with your child’s reading, trust that...

Vague IEP reading goals stall progress. Here's the specific phonics language to ask for and why it matters.

IEP Goals and Phonics: What to Ask For and Why

If you’ve already sat through an IEP meeting and walked out feeling like the...

The Hidden Problem With AI Reading Feedback

The Hidden Problem With AI Reading Feedback

Your child finishes reading a passage aloud to a tablet, and a cheerful message appears. Ninety-eight percent accuracy. Great job. It feels like proof that reading is going well, and…

Why Some Children Learn to Read Earlier Than Others

Why Some Children Learn to Read Earlier Than Others

In any kindergarten classroom, one child is already reading chapter books while another is still working out that letters make sounds. Both can be completely normal. Reading is not a…

How AI Listening Technology Works in Reading Apps

How AI Listening Technology Works in Reading Apps

Some reading apps do something that feels almost magical. Your child reads a sentence aloud, and the app instantly shows which words they nailed and which tripped them up. There…

The Skills Children Need Before Formal Phonics Instruction

The Skills Children Need Before Formal Phonics Instruction

By the time a child sounds out their first word, most of the groundwork is already in place. Reading does not begin with letters on a page. It begins years…

Parents’ Guide to AI-Powered Reading Programs

Parents’ Guide to AI-Powered Reading Programs

Your child’s tablet can now do something that sounded like science fiction a few years ago. It can listen to them read aloud, catch the words they miss, and adjust…

AI Reading Tutors vs Human Reading Tutors

AI Reading Tutors vs Human Reading Tutors

An AI reading tutor never sighs, never glances at the clock, and never loses patience at seven on a Tuesday night. For about the price of one coffee a month,…

Can AI Teach Phonics Better Than Apps?

Can AI Teach Phonics Better Than Apps?

Search “learn to read” in the App Store right now and you will get hundreds of results, most of them describing themselves as “AI-powered.” Jolly Phonics, Hooked on Phonics, Duolingo…

Best AI Reading Tutors for Kids: A Parent and Teacher Guide

Best AI Reading Tutors for Kids: A Parent and Teacher Guide

What if every child had access to a patient, one-on-one reading tutor who never lost their place, never got tired, and adjusted instruction within seconds based on what a child…

Using YouTube for Phonics Practice: The Good, the Bad, and the Useless

Using YouTube for Phonics Practice: The Good, the Bad, and the Useless

YouTube has more than 500 hours of video uploaded every minute. Somewhere in that flood of content are genuinely useful phonics resources for your child, and somewhere are videos that…

How Long Does It Take a Child to Complete a Phonics Program?

How Long Does It Take a Child to Complete a Phonics Program?

Parents starting a phonics program often want to know one thing: how long is this going to take? It is a reasonable question, and the honest answer is that it…