My son’s progress report from his reading teacher says, “Chris needs to work on letter names and sounds. He also needs to work on putting sounds together to read basic words.” My son is in speech therapy. This is his third year.

In my school we have several children with speech delays. I commend you for having him with a speech therapist. Most Phonics programs teach small children reading concepts by using visual aids, music, blending skills, and phonics pronunciation. As a teacher I don’t think it is directly a speech program, but rather a reading program. However, the side benefits of using the program can directly affect speech patterns of small children.

Helping your son learn the names of the letters and the sounds that each letter says is an important first step in the reading process. The next step is blending those sounds into simple phonetic words. A great side note is that you don’t have to learn all 26 letters before you can start blending the letters you do know into words, thus having the success of reading words begin right away. Best of luck to you.