Children who study phonetics at an early age learn by understanding phonemes, or sounds, and how these connect to letters. These students often learn the alphabet using sounds and are taught to connect these sounds to letters in words. For example, they might learn the letter "A" and that it has its own sound, "Ah," which is found in words like "Apple." This technique teaches children early on that each letter has a phonetic identity.
Students who learn to read using phonics are often taught using phonetic analogy. This means that children understand how to group letters of sound together into syllables. Memorizing these groupings makes it easier to read words by prounoncing a group of sounds as if it was just one sound. For example, a child who is not taught phoneticc analogy may see the words "trust" and "crust" and have to sound out each letter for each word," cuh-ruh-uh-suh-tuh." Children who are taught analogically know that the letters "ust," form "trust," when grouped together, say "uh-suh-tuh." Thus, when they see the word "crust," they do not need to spell out each of the letters.
Phonetic instructions improve children's spelling abilities, which in turn improves reading comrehension and vocabilary skills. Children who learn to read phonetically can spell well because they can reverse the process by which they learned to pronounce the word. For example, if a child is sees the letters, "c-a-t," they assign them sounds and pronounce it, "cat." If that child hears the word, "cat," then he often isolates the phonetic sounds, associates with the appropriate letters and say those letters, "c-a-t."
Phonics also helps children to memorize tricky irregular words and grammar and spelling rules. Becuase not all English words are pronounced phonetically, children who learn to read with phonics will stumble over words that break phonetic rules. The students can then memorize these words and label them as irregular. For example, the word "rough," cannot be accurately pronounced using phonics. When a child learns this, he makes a mental note that the word "rough," is different than other words.