Before they can read independently, children must learn the relationship of letters to their sounds and be able to distinguish individual sounds, or phonemes, within words. Phonics skills help children sounds out new words (If I can read "pot", then I can read "hot" and "spot").

To read and write, children must understand how individual letter sounds blend together to make words. Experimenting with building words, such as changing mat to cat to rat, helps with reading and spelling.

Knowing the letters of the alphabet is one of the first steps toward learning to read and write. Introducing letters to young children helps them learn to recognize the different shapes and names - an early indicator for reading achievement.

Spelling begins with regular short vowel sounds (cap) and long vowel sounds (with silent e, cap becomes cape). Finally, children learn the rules and patterns of vowel pairs (ee), digraphs (ai in train), dipthongs (oi in boil) and r-controlled vowels (farm, bird).

Logic and reasoning start to develop by the time a child is around 18 months old. Children use logic in everyday situations to solve problems and draw conclusions.

Memory skills are essential for learning. It is fairly easy to help your child train their memory using memory games, poems and particular memory strategies.

The ability to extend, complete and duplicate patterns by determining the specific attributes of those patterns is a logical reasoning skill that forms a basis for future work in math. Recognizing patterns is also important for learning to read. Many high frequency words have similiar components (the sound "an" is in can, and hand). Recognizing these patterns helps children work out a new word faster.

Identifying and manipulating shapes lays the groundwork for geometry by giving children concrete experience with angles, symmetry and relative sizes.

As early as 6 months, babies begin to understand the concept of numbers, noticing small groups of one, two or three things. As children develop number sense they learn to count by ones, skip count and count backwards, gaining the foundation for operations. Children who have good number sense find learning operations like addition and subtraction much easier.

To begin their study of math, children must distinguish numerals from letters and shapes and understand that numbers are symbols for amounts.

Even toddlers can often recite number names in order, but the ability to compare and order numbers in sequence indicates a practical application of number concepts.