Best Phonics Websites

By Spencer Riley | Updated on July 10, 2023

Phonics websites provide your child with phonics instructions to help them understand the relationship between letters of the written language and sound of a particular language.

Phonics is one of the five essential elements of learning to read, alongside phonemic awareness, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension. With this list, we've narrowed the field down to some phonics programs, both free and paid, that help students learn phonics. Online phonics programs enable teachers to deliver lessons in a fun and engaging way, using various activities.

Here is the list of the best phonics websites that you use in educating your child to learn their alphabets, understand the relationships between sounds, words, and sentences.

1. Reading Eggs
2. Time4Learning
3. PBS Kids
4. ReadWriteThink
5. Teach Your Monster to Read

6. Starfall
7. Softschools
8. ICTgames

1. Reading Eggs

Reading Eggs is an online reading program that helps children learn to read. Hundreds of online reading lessons, phonics games, and books for ages 2–13. Their online phonics program is a great way for your child to prepare for school, or help them catch up with their classmates if they are struggling with phonics.

Reading Eggs allows kids to play phonics games online to develop their phonemic awareness and become fluent readers.

Reading Eggs is a fun phonics site that explores the reading process through the use of games. Reading Eggs teaches letter-sound combinations with one-on-one instructional lessons, games and e-books. This website has short games that build phonemic awareness to help children apply word knowledge and decode text. Teachers also get instant feedback on student progress and target in-class reading teaching.

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2. Time4Learning

Learning phonics is fun and easy with their online phonics program. Phonics lessons are integrated into Time4Learning's language arts homeschool curriculum.

Time4Learning presents phonics curriculum in a style that is both engaging and effective. From preschool to 2nd grade, Time4Learning’s phonics reading program uses reading activities and fun interactive games to teach and reinforce.

Time4Learning can be used for homeschool, afterschool or summer learning and is a great way to start young learners off on the right foot.

3. PBS KIDS Games

PBS Kids is a free website that helps children to learn phonics in a fun and interactive way. PBS Kids features all of the educational programs the television station PBS offers for kids. Each program has different types of engaging games and activities to help kids learn several skill sets.

PBS Kids games and activities include many different alphabet learning tools addressing all learning aspects of the alphabetic principle such as alphabet order, letter names and sounds; initial, middle, and ending sounds in words, and sound blending. PBS Kids has a reading, spelling, and thinking component.

Kids can have stories read to them while watching their favorite characters and seeing the words across the bottom of the screen. Kids can learn how to spell words with many games and songs specifically targeting spelling. PBS Kids has a printable section where kids can learn through coloring and following directions.

PBS Kids also addresses math, science, and other subjects. Kids get the unique opportunity to interact with characters from their favorite programs in a fun learning environment. Children ages 2-10 can benefit immensely by using PBS kids.

4. ReadWriteThink

ReadWriteThink is a terrific interactive phonics and reading site for K-12. This site is backed by the International Reading Association and NCTE. ReadWriteThink has resources for classrooms, professional development, and for parents to use at home. ReadWriteThink offers 59 different student interactives ranging throughout the grades. Each interactive provides a grade suggested guide.

These interactives cover various topics including alphabetic principle, poetry, writing tools, reading comprehension, character, plot, book covers, story outlines, graphing, thinking, processing, organizing, summarizing, and many others. ReadWriteThink also offers printouts, lesson plans, and author calendar resources.

5. Teach Your Monster to Read

This award-winning phonics game is completely free to use on a PC and an app can be purchased relatively inexpensively for use with tablets. The game is designed for children of primary school age in the UK. However, some of the activities in the Classroom Toolkit section would be suitable for using at home with younger children.

The site gives your child free access to a series of activities with a common storyline and increasing levels of difficulty. Teach Your Monster to Read isn’t a stand alone phonics programme, but it’s certainly a good way of providing variety and reinforcing key ideas.

6. Starfall Learn to Read

Starfall is an excellent free interactive phonics website that is suitable for grades PreK-2nd. Starfall has many different components for kids to explore the reading process. There is an alphabet component where each letter is broken down in its own little book. The book goes over the sound of the letter, words that begin with that letter, how to sign each letter, and the name of each letter. Starfall also has a creativity section.

Kids can build and decorate things like snowmen and pumpkins in their own fun creative way while reading a book. Another component of Starfall is reading. There are several interactive stories that help foster learning to read in 4 graduated levels.

All of these learning components are offered to the public at no charge. There is an additional Starfall you can purchase for a small fee. The additional Starfall is an extension of the learning components discussed previously.

7. Softschools

Softschools is a terrific site to help learners from Pre-K through Middle School develop a strong reading sense. The site has grade specific tabs you can click on to customize your learning outcome. Softschools has quizzes, games, worksheets, and flashcards designed to highlight specific topics within phonics and language arts.

A few of these topics include grammar, spelling, reading comprehension, lowercase/uppercase letters, abc order, beginning/middle/ending sounds, r controlled words, digraphs, diphthongs, synonyms/antonyms, pronoun/noun, adjective/adverb, rhyming words, syllables, and many more.

The worksheets and quizzes can either be automatically generated or custom made by the teacher. Softschools also has a test prep section for 3rd grade and up. Softschools is not just a fantastic phonics and language arts site. It is also excellent for many other subjects including math, science, social studies, Spanish, handwriting, and others.

8. ICTgames

ICTgames is a fun phonics site that explores the reading process through the use of games. This site is geared toward PK-2nd. ICTgames has around 35 games covering various literacy topics.

The topics included in these games are abc order, letter sounds, letter matching, cvc, sound blends, word building, spelling, sentence writing, and several others. The games are centered around dinosaurs, planes, dragons, rockets, and other age-appropriate subjects designed to engage students. ICTgames also has a math game component that is extremely helpful.

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