step #1: the base and best sequence to teach phonics

when taught in a sequence, most children pick up spellings and reading very well. you may start teaching alphabet recognition to a child as small as 2 years old. once a child recognizes alphabets, you may teach him corresponding words using pictures. soon the child learns that there are many words that start with the same letter. (B for bat, ball, C for cat, car etc). no stress should be put on individual sounds at this stage. this is the base to learning phonetics later on. once the base is established, you may start teaching phonetics sequentially, say, by the end of Nursery. please note that there is no fixed age, some children learn early and some learn late. a little bit of up and down in the age doesnt matter in the long run. so dont feel the pressure of teaching, feeling that clock is ticking.

the best sequence to teach phonetics to a child is:

1. single consonant sound
2. single vowel sound (the common sounds only)
3. CVC words
4. blends of two consonants
5. simple units - 1
6. sight words
7. simple units-2
8. clusters
9. compound words
10. homophones
11. homonyms 
12. short and long sounds
13. 2-3 syllable words
14. silent letters
15. complex units
16. 4-6 syllable words