Online English Classes for Kids: Phonics, Speaking and Reading

1How do phonics, speaking and graded reading fit together in WuKong's course?

WuKong's online English course teaches three connected areas: phonics, speaking and graded reading, with the aim of a native-like feel for English. Every lesson is live and 1-on-1 with a certified teacher, so the balance between the three areas follows your child's level and interests.

Complete beginners can join, because the teacher assesses each child's level first and beginners follow a different path from children with a stronger background. For the free trial, pricing and scheduling, see the parent FAQ page.

2What is phonics, and why does English need it?

Phonics teaches children how the letters of written English represent the sounds of spoken English. The UK Department for Education's reading framework calls the smallest unit of sound that changes meaning a phoneme, as in the difference between “gap” and “cap”, and the letter or letters that represent it a grapheme.

A grapheme can be one letter, like “b” in big, two letters, like “sh” in ship, three, like “igh” in light, or four, like “eigh” in weight. English uses 26 letters to represent about 44 phonemes, with more than 70 common correspondences between them, which is why children are taught these letter–sound correspondences explicitly.

3What are blending and segmenting?

Blending and segmenting are the two core phonics skills, and they work in opposite directions. Blending means saying the individual sounds in a word and pushing them together to read it, so /sh/ /i/ /p/ becomes “ship”; segmenting means breaking a spoken word into its sounds in order to spell it.

The reading framework describes reading and spelling as reversible processes for this reason. It also notes that a few common exception words, sometimes called tricky words, such as “said”, “the” and “was”, contain spellings that are unusual or not yet taught, and children learn them by noticing the unusual part.

4Decodable books or graded readers: what is the difference?

Decodable books and graded readers both control difficulty, but in different ways. Decodable books follow the order in which a phonics programme teaches letter–sound correspondences, so a child can decode every word using what they have learned so far; the reading framework advises that books sent home should match the correspondences a child can already decode.

Graded readers are books written or adapted at set difficulty levels, with vocabulary and sentence structures controlled at each level, and publishers usually arrange them in series of several levels. Level names such as “Starter” or “Elementary” are not standardised across publishers, so the Extensive Reading Foundation suggests headword counts as a more accurate guide.

5How do I know a reading book is the right level?

The Extensive Reading Foundation's guide gives a simple test based on how many words a child already knows. When a reader knows about 98% of the words on a page, they can read quickly, enjoyably and with high comprehension; between 90% and 98% is an instructional level, useful for learning new language although the reader will still need to look up words; below 90% reading becomes slow and frustrating.

• Quick check: on a page of about 100 words, two or fewer unknown words is comfortable independent reading.
• Three to ten unknown words: instructional level, good for learning new words with an adult or teacher on hand.
• More than ten: choose an easier book for now and come back to this one later.

6Why do speaking and reading aloud matter alongside phonics?

Phonics helps children work out words, but understanding them depends on vocabulary. The reading framework notes that listening to and talking about stories develops children's vocabulary, because they meet words they would rarely hear in everyday speech, and that understanding vocabulary is vital for comprehension in both reading and listening.

It also says children benefit hugely from listening to family members reading aloud to them, and that fluency builds as children re-read familiar books. In WuKong's English course, speaking is one of the three core areas and is practised in real-time conversation with the teacher.

Frequently asked questions