Most children can find the beginning sound of a word once they know the letter sounds. If they have trouble figuring out the rest of the sounds, have them skip to the end of the word. If the word is "bat" and they are making the "b" sound, ask them to find the last sound, "t." Then have them add the middle sound. If they still can't figure it out, offer a picture of the item to help them make the connection.
As children sound out words, they can come out choppy and difficult to understand. To help children increase the fluidity of their reading, have them say the sentence over again to themselves and listen to see if it makes sense. Did the word they just said sound normal in the sentence? Is there another way to say the word that makes more sense?
If a child has sounded out the word, and it didn't make sense in the sentence, have them use the pictures. Using picture cues is a quick and easy strategy to teach children so they can become independent in reading. Simply have them look at the picture accompanying the sentence to figure out the context of the sentence to help them decipher the word/s. This will become second nature to children if you encourage it.
After children have developed some initial word recognition, they will begin to see letter families. Word families occur when words share a group of letters, but have different beginning sounds (and, sand, band, land). Once children have the sounds of one word in the family, they can begin to substitute beginning sounds to make the other words. You can cue them by telling them to "find the word family."
As children learn more words by sight, they will be able to decipher longer words. Multisyllabic words can be extremely challenging to learn. One tip to help children break down the word into parts is to have the clap out the syllables. If they clap as they sound it out, it gives them a tool to independently figure the word out. This also brings their focus to the different parts of the word and helps them memorize the sounds.