How to Teach Phonics Effectively in 4 Simple Steps

When I became a teacher, I didn’t know how to teach phonics. Sure, I knew the big picture of teaching students to decode starting at the word-level. But I didn’t know how to teach phonics in a systematic way. And I know I’m not alone in this. While the science of reading is finally reaching legislation in many states, it is slow to trickle into teacher preparation programs. Many teachers (myself included) learned how to teach reading using a balanced literacy approach and had to pay for an expensive out-of-pocket course to learn how to teach phonics effectively.

But learning how to teach phonics doesn’t have to be so complicated or expensive! These simple tips will help you learn how to teach phonics in a way that works for all your students. In this post, we will cover how to teach a basic reading lesson. In the next post, we will cover how to teach a spelling lesson. If you have a longer phonics block, you may combine both types of lessons together.

What is Phonics?

Before we dive into how to teach phonics, let’s start with a quick overview of what phonics is. Phonics is the process of connecting the sounds of speech to the printed letters that represent them. Phonics helps students learn to decode the English language by forming a bridge between oral language and written language. Strong phonics instruction helps students to become fluent and efficient readers and writers by recognizing patterns in language. Most importantly, phonics is an essential component of reading instruction that is backed by decades of research (See here and here).

Start with a Systematic Scope and Sequence

Before jumping into the basics of how to teach phonics, it’s important to first start with what to teach when. Start with a systematic scope and sequence that builds in complexity. A good phonics scope and sequence should start by teaching the short vowel sounds first. Why? There are two important reasons. First, short vowels are the most commonly used vowel sounds in the English language. Second, short vowels have fewer spelling variations than long vowel sounds. For this reason, it is much easier for students to master short vowel sounds before moving onto more complex long vowels. While some short vowel sounds have multiple spelling patterns, most short vowels are represented by a single vowel. 

Not sure where to start or how to sequence your phonics instruction? 👇

Step 1: Teach and Practice Letter-Sound Connections

Now that we’ve established a scope and sequence, let’s dive into how to teach phonics step-by-step. The first step of your daily phonics instruction is teaching and practicing letter-sound connections. You can use a variety of methods to help your students learn letter-sound connections. When introducing a new sound, consider teaching the sound using real objects that represent the sound. For example, you might present your students with an apple to introduce the short /a/ sound or a cup to teach the /k/ sound.

When teaching your students to connect speech sounds to printed letters, make it multisensory by pairing movements with visual cues and oral language practice. For instance, have students use big motor movements to write the letter a in the air while saying “a – apple /a/” or have students say the sound aloud 3 times as they write the letter in sand. Using movement-based strategies such as air writing or sensory writing strategies such as tactile writing help students form stronger connections in the brain.

Once sounds have been introduced, provide students with an opportunity to practice learned letter-sound connections each day using a visual sound drill. This means showing students a grapheme (letter or combination of letters that represents a sound) and having students produce the related phoneme (sound). This should be a brief part of the phonics lesson. In most lessons, the sound drill should take no more than 5 minutes.

➡️ Ready to add a sound drill to your phonics routine? Read more about Letter-Sound Posters in this blog post

Step 2: Teach Students to Read Words in a Multisensory Way

The second step in your phonics lesson is to teach students to decode words by modeling and providing structured opportunities for practice. At the modeling stage, the teacher may post a word or string of words on the board. The teacher will model the process of tapping each sound in the word then blending the sounds to read the word. As students become more proficient with using the strategy of tapping sounds, a student can take over the modeling process for the teacher. As you move throughout the phonics lesson, you will gradually release responsibility to students by providing opportunities for students to apply what they have learned with increasing independence.

After modeling the process of tapping and blending sounds to read words, provide opportunities for students to practice this skill using words with targeted patterns. It is important for students to gain practice with new concepts while also frequently reviewing previously learned concepts. Ensure that your word reading activities include a balance of new concepts and review. This is also a great part of the lesson for incorporating games. Word reading should be fast-paced and scaffolded in an intentional and diagnostic manner to target concepts and skills that students may have struggled with in a prior lesson. However, this part of the lesson is relatively short and may take approximately 5-10 minutes.

Step 3: Read Phrases and Sentences

The third step of your phonics lesson is to build fluency at the sentence-level by teaching students to connect words into meaningful phrases. Before reading a sentence aloud, encourage students to scoop the sentence into phrases. If your students are stuck with what to scoop together, encourage your students to scoop together who the sentence is about (subject), what the subject of the sentence is doing (action), and phrases that add detail to the sentence. See the picture below for an example of scooping phrases.

When reading sentences, it is also important for your students to attend to punctuation. Encourage your students to highlight the punctuation at the end of a sentence and to read the sentence aloud with inflection. Sentence reading takes approximately 5-10 minutes depending on the length of sentences and activities for structured practice.

Step 4: Build Fluency with Decodable Texts

The fourth step of your phonics lesson is to use decodable texts to help your students develop reading fluency. Decodable texts are stories, poems, or informational texts that only contain words or patterns that have been explicitly taught. Students should be able to decode the text independently. Prior to reading decodable text, determine any vocabulary words that may be tricky for students. Teach these vocabulary words using pictures or videos, simple definitions, and relatable examples. Also prior to reading, activate or build students’ background knowledge of the topic by asking questions and providing context.

To build fluency, provide opportunities for students to read decodable texts multiple times. A simple way to structure this is to first have students read the text silently to themselves. Then, have students read the text a second time, this time reading the text aloud to themselves or a partner. Finally, have students read the text a third time, this time focusing on a specific thinking job to comprehend the text. For example, have the students reread the text to determine the main idea of the text. The key to having students engage in multiple reads of a text without it becoming too repetitive is to provide a different purpose for reading each time.

How to Teach Phonics in a FUN Way!

If you’re looking for how to teach phonics in a fun way, try these three ideas:

1. Play games. Games are a great way to practice reading while having fun. Try a word reading game like Slap It (using a fly swatter to swat a word from an array), Stop (reading word cards in a stack until a “stop” card is drawn), or Kaboom (drawing a word from the stack, reading the word, and keeping the card until a “Kaboom” card is drawn – then returning all cards to the deck).

2. Read silly stories and poems. Silly stories and poems are a fun way to help your students build confidence as readers while boosting engagement. Try using silly stories and poems that are decodable based on previously taught syllable types, sounds, and high frequency words. Or take an ordinary decodable text and making the reading silly by having students read in “Slow Mo” mode (slow motion) or read using a comical voice.

3. Sing songs. Songs are a great way to boost engagement when introducing new sounds and syllable types. Carla Siravo and her husband make catchy parodies of popular songs to teach phonics concepts aligned to the science of reading. Check out this awesome parody of Harry Styles’ “As it Was” on open and closed syllables:

This post focused on the basics of how to teach phonics lessons focused on reading. 📖 Stay tuned for the next post where we break down the basics of how to teach phonics lessons focused on spelling! ✏️