How to teach phonics step by step

1 What phonics is, and what it isn't

Phonics is teaching children how letters and groups of letters stand for the sounds of spoken words, so they can work out words they have never seen in print and spell the words they can say. A child who knows that sh says /sh/ and i says /i/ can read ship, fish and shin without having memorized any of them.

It sits next to phonemic awareness, which is hearing and playing with the sounds in spoken words, with no letters involved: hearing that map has three sounds, or that map without the /m/ is ap. Phonemic awareness is the ear; phonics joins the ear to the letters. Most kindergarten and first grade lessons do a few minutes of each.

Two words describe good phonics teaching:

• Systematic: the patterns are taught in a planned order, from simple to complex, each one building on the last, rather than as they happen to come up in a story.
• Explicit: the teacher states the pattern directly ("These two letters, s and h, work together to say /sh/"), shows it, and has students practice it, rather than hoping children will notice it by themselves.

Phonics is not the whole of reading. Children also need vocabulary, background knowledge, fluency and comprehension. But for beginning readers, being able to turn print into words is the door the rest walks through.

2 What the evidence says

Two sources are worth knowing by name, and both are free to read on their publishers' own sites (linked below).

The National Reading Panel report of 2000 reviewed the research on teaching reading. On phonics, its findings page says that systematic phonics instruction enhances children's success in learning to read, and that it is significantly more effective than instruction that teaches little or no phonics. On phonemic awareness, it reports that teaching children to manipulate phonemes in words was highly effective under a variety of teaching conditions.

The What Works Clearinghouse practice guide Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade (2016) makes four recommendations and rates the evidence for each. Three bear directly on phonics teaching:

• Develop awareness of the segments of sounds in speech and how they link to letters. Strong evidence.
• Teach students to decode words, analyze word parts, and write and recognize words. Strong evidence.
• Ensure that each student reads connected text every day to support reading accuracy, fluency, and comprehension. Moderate evidence.

The fourth recommendation, on academic language and vocabulary, has minimal evidence in the guide's rating, but it is a reminder that phonics lessons sit inside a day that is also full of talk, stories and new words.

The practical upshot of both sources is the shape of the lesson in this guide: sounds, letters, decoding, spelling and reading real text every day.

3 A typical order of patterns

Every phonics program has its own scope and sequence, and they differ in the details. If your school has a program, follow its order; the most important thing is that the order is planned and that students practice each pattern until it is secure. If you are building your own, this is a common shape, from simplest to hardest:

1. A first set of consonants and short vowels, chosen so words can be made quickly: for example m, s, a, t, p, i, n. With those seven, students can read sat, map, tip and pin in the first weeks.
2. The rest of the single consonants and short vowels, building up to all consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) words: short a, short e, short i, short o, short u.
3. Consonant digraphs: two letters, one sound, as in sh, ch, th, wh and ck. See digraphs.
4. Consonant blends: two or three consonants each keeping its sound, as in st, fl, tr and spl. See blends.
5. Silent e (CVCe): cap to cape, kit to kite. See magic e.
6. Vowel teams: ai and ay, ee and ea, oa and ow, and so on. See long a, long e and long o.
7. R-controlled vowels: ar, or, er, ir, ur. See r-controlled vowels.
8. Other vowel sounds: oi and oy, ou and ow, oo, au and aw.
9. Longer words: syllable types, common prefixes and suffixes, and how to split a long word into parts.

Kindergarten usually covers the first two or three steps, first grade most of the rest, and second grade the later vowel patterns and multisyllable words. Students move at different speeds, so expect to teach small groups at different points in the sequence.

4 A 30-minute daily lesson

A predictable routine frees students to think about the sounds instead of the lesson's shape. This one fits in 20 to 30 minutes and works whole-class or in a small group.

1. Review (3 minutes). Flash the letter cards for patterns already taught; students say the sound, not the letter name. Mix in two or three from weeks ago.
2. Sound warm-up (3 minutes). Oral blending and segmenting with no letters: you say /m/ /a/ /p/, they say map; you say ship, they say /sh/ /i/ /p/.
3. New pattern (5 minutes). Name it, show it, say its sound, give three example words, and point out where it appears in a word.
4. Blending practice (5 minutes). Students read a list of words using the new pattern and the old ones. Use word chains, where one sound changes each time.
5. Spelling (5 minutes). Dictate four or five words and one short sentence. Students say each word, tap the sounds, and write.
6. Reading connected text (8 minutes). Students read a short decodable text that uses only the patterns taught so far, then reread it.
7. Tricky words (1–2 minutes). One new high-frequency word, taught as in the chapter below.

Introducing a new pattern

What to say"Look at these two letters, s and h. When they sit together, they make one new sound: /sh/. Say it with me: /sh/. Listen for it at the start of ship, and at the end of fish. Your turn: read this word. Touch under each sound: /sh/ /i/ /p/. Now say it fast: ship."

Keep the teacher talk short and the student practice long. Students should say, read or write the new pattern many times in the lesson, not just hear about it.

5 Teaching blending

Blending is pushing individual sounds together into a word. It is where many beginning readers get stuck: they can say /c/ /a/ /t/ but can't hear cat. Two techniques help.

Continuous blending

Stretch the sounds together without stopping between them, like a slide: mmmaaap. Sounds you can hold, such as /m/, /s/, /f/, /l/, /n/ and the vowels, make this easier, which is why many programs start with them. For stop sounds such as /t/, /p/ and /b/, which can't be stretched, move straight from the stop sound into the vowel: /ta/ then /tap/.

Sound by sound

Say the first sound, then the second, then blend those two, then add the third: /s/, /a/, /sa/, /t/, /sat/. It breaks the job into smaller steps for students who lose the first sound by the time they reach the last.

Word chains

Change one sound at a time and have students read each new word: cat, hat, hit, hip, ship, shop. Chains force students to look at every letter instead of guessing from the first one, and they show you exactly which sound a student is missing.

What to say"Read this word. Good, cat. Watch: I'm changing the c to an h. What does it say now? Yes, hat. Now I'm changing the a to an i..."

6 Spelling as practice for reading

Spelling (encoding) is phonics run backward: hear the word, break it into sounds, and write a letter or letter group for each. It strengthens the same links between sounds and letters that reading uses, so put a few minutes of it in every lesson.

Say it, tap it, write it

1. Say the word in a sentence: "Ship. The ship sailed away. Ship."
2. Students repeat the word.
3. Students tap one finger to the thumb for each sound: /sh/ /i/ /p/, three taps.
4. Students write one letter or letter group for each tap.
5. Show the correct spelling, and students check and fix their own.

Sound boxes help younger students: a row of empty boxes, one per sound, where they push a counter into each box as they say the sound, then write the letters. For ship there are three boxes, and sh goes in the first.

End with a dictated sentence that uses the new pattern and a tricky word students have learned, such as "The fish is in a dish." Sentences show whether students can hold the pattern while also thinking about capitals, spaces and periods.

The spelling practice and test maker builds a list and a test sheet from the words you choose, and the handwriting worksheet maker makes letter formation practice.

7 Reading decodable text every day

Students need to apply the patterns in real sentences, every day. A decodable text is one written mostly with the letter-sound patterns students have already been taught, plus a small number of tricky words they have learned. It lets beginners succeed by decoding, which is the skill you want them to practice.

Match the text to where the student is in the sequence, not to their grade. A child who has learned short vowels and digraphs but not silent e should read text with ship and chat, not shape and chase.

• First read: students read aloud quietly, at their own pace, while you listen to one at a time and note errors.
• Second read: with a partner, taking turns by page or sentence.
• Third read: for meaning. Ask one question about the text, so students remember that reading is about understanding.

Our decodable sentences by phonics pattern give sentences and word lists for each pattern from short a to r-controlled vowels. Once students read a pattern accurately, our reading passages and the fluency timer help build speed and expression.

Decodable text is a bridge, not a destination. As students master more patterns, the texts can grow more varied, and by the later grades students read ordinary books. Keep reading rich stories aloud to the class throughout, so vocabulary and love of stories don't wait for decoding to catch up. Our read-aloud books are made for the projector.

8 Tricky high-frequency words

Some very common words have parts that don't follow the patterns students know yet (said, was, the), or follow patterns they haven't reached (like before silent e). Students need them early, because they appear in almost every sentence.

Rather than asking students to memorize such words as shapes, teach them like other words, and point out only the part that is irregular:

1. Say the word and use it in a sentence.
2. Say the sounds in the word and count them.
3. Write the word and match letters to sounds. Underline the parts that work as expected.
4. Mark the tricky part. In said, the ai says /e/; students "learn it by heart". Many teachers draw a small heart over the tricky part.
5. Students read the word, spell it from memory, and use it in a sentence.

Teach one or two a day at most, and review them often. Our Dolch sight word lists give the common high-frequency words by level with flash cards; many of those words are fully decodable once students know the patterns, so check before you treat a word as tricky.

9 Checking progress and grouping

Phonics teaching works when it matches what each student knows. Short, frequent checks tell you who needs reteaching and who is ready to move on.

• Keep a one-page sound checklist for each student: every pattern in your sequence, with a tick when the student reads and spells it correctly on two different days.
• Use the dictation from each lesson as a quick check. Note which sound each wrong spelling missed.
• Listen to each student read a decodable text aloud every week or two, and note the patterns they misread.
• Group students by the pattern they need next, not by a general reading level, and regroup every few weeks.
• Use your school's screening and progress tests as it directs, and bring concerns to your reading specialist or support team early.

When a student isn't making progress, look at the earlier steps first. Trouble with vowel teams is often trouble with blending, or with short vowels that were never secure. Go back to the step that is shaky, practice it in short daily bursts, and move forward again.

10 Phonics for older students who struggle

Students in third grade and up who never secured phonics often guess at long words from the first few letters. They need the same skills taught with materials that respect their age.

• Find the gap. Have them read a list of short words by pattern, then real and made-up multisyllable words. Start teaching where the errors begin.
• Teach syllable splitting. Show how to find the vowels, split between consonants (nap-kin, rab-bit), and read each part before putting the word back together.
• Teach word parts. Common prefixes (un-, re-, pre-), suffixes (-ing, -ed, -tion, -able) and roots let a student read and understand unbreakable or repainting in chunks. The What Works Clearinghouse guide's third recommendation includes analyzing word parts.
• Use age-appropriate text. Choose short nonfiction passages on topics they care about, and let them reread to build fluency.
• Keep it short and daily. Fifteen focused minutes a day does more than an hour once a week.

Talk with the student about what you are doing and why. Older students work harder when they understand that they are learning a code, not being sent back to kindergarten.