The purpose of phonics is to help students read new words by sounding them out. The student who uses phonics to decode a word can associate the printed letters with the speech sound the letters represent and then blend them together to pronounce the word. In this book, children are introduced to the twenty-six letters of the alphabet and how each letter sounds. The hard and soft sounds of letters c and g are taught as well as the short and long sounds of a, e, i, o, and u. For each letter, children are given visual cues with labels so they can say words and listen for the sound. Then they practice finding words that begin with that sound. Practice exercises help children discriminate between two or three sound-symbol associations.