Building Strong Readers: How to Teach Phonics in the Classroom

Phonics instruction teaches students that spoken language translates into written language. Students learn to read when they realize how spoken sounds combine to form words. Once they understand how sounds work together and correspond to letters, children can start decoding written words. 

A core component of Structured Literacy, phonics plays a critical role in developing students’ foundational reading and writing skills. In Structured Literacy programs informed by the science of reading, phonics instruction follows a systematic, explicit sequence and is integrated with other literacy elements. 

Read on to discover how you can strengthen students’ phonics skills in your classroom. 

What Is Phonics?

According to the National Literacy Trust, phonics is the process of matching the sounds of spoken English with individual letters or groups of letters. It is one of the five pillars of reading that form the foundation of an effective reading program. The other pillars are phonemic awareness, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. 

Students use phonics skills to decode and encode words when reading and writing. However, research shows that students have difficulty decoding more complex words when foundational decoding and encoding knowledge is lacking. Many people assume that phonics is synonymous with the science of reading, but it’s only one piece of a complex puzzle. 

Why Is Phonics Important?

Research shows systematic phonics instruction provides beginning readers, at-risk readers, disabled readers, and low-achieving readers with a higher chance of learning how to read proficiently than other forms of instruction. Rather than guessing words, students can use phonics to develop accurate, automatic word identification skills. 

When children first learn to read, they decode using phonics strategies. This helps them sound out words and build their knowledge of letter patterns. Then, they begin to remember those letter patterns and eventually recognize most words by sight. Reading automaticity is essential for developing reading fluency and contributes to efficient and effective reading comprehension. Phonic word attack strategies continue to play a role in later grades when students encounter unfamiliar words in a text.

Phonological Awareness: How It Differs From Phonemic Awareness or Phonics

Phonological awareness refers to one’s ability to recognize and work with the larger parts of spoken language. It includes skills such as rhyming, combining small words to form compound words, breaking words into syllables, and separating words into beginning sounds (onsets) and the rest of the word (rimes). 

Phonemic awareness describes a person’s ability to identify individual sounds and sound sequences in spoken words. When students develop phonemic awareness, they can identify, segment, blend, and manipulate individual sounds (phonemes) in words. They then connect the phonemes in spoken words to written language.

Developing phonemic awareness is critical for reading in English because it: 

• Supports an understanding of the alphabetic principle (sound/symbol correspondences)

• Helps with mapping sounds onto letters to decode and spell words

• Helps students recognize decoded words faster when they are seen again

• Sharpens awareness of word pronunciation for vocabulary learning

• Facilitates reading accuracy

Phonemic awareness and phonics support one another in helping students learn to read and spell. Students develop phonemic awareness by hearing the sounds in words, while phonics helps them map them to letters or letter combinations. If students can’t recognize sounds in words, they won’t be able to connect them to letters.

To develop phonological awareness, students must learn syllable recognition, blending, and segmenting skills for effective reading and spelling. They must also understand the relationship between phonemes (sounds) and graphemes (letters) to decode and encode words accurately. Here is how each of these skills enables students to learn how to read.

Syllables

A young child might first learn to clap out the syllables in a word like “basketball” (clapping three times: bas-ket-ball) before understanding how the /s/ and /k/ sounds blend together to make a /sk/ sound because young children learn to isolate syllables in words before they identify phonemes. In other words, before students can develop phoneme awareness, they must first build syllable awareness.

Blending

Blending, or combining sounds, is an essential skill students need to read and spell successfully. When students realize that words are made up of individual sounds (phonemes) and that letters represent those sounds, they gain enough foundation to start learning how to read.

Students must understand how individual sounds blend to decode unfamiliar words. Phonics knowledge helps them segment and blend onsets and rimes in words. For example, in the word "mat," students would identify the sounds /m/, /æ/, and /t/ and blend them to say "mat." This method asks learners to decode words by sounding them out. 

Segmenting

Segmenting refers to the ability to break sounds apart. Phonemic segmentation helps students identify and separate the phonemes bonded to graphemes when a word’s written form is retained in memory (NRP, 2000). In other words, students can read by breaking down words into individual sounds. For instance, "pig" can be segmented into /p/, /i/, and /g/. When students understand each of the segments of a word and how they blend, they can more easily read and spell.

Phonemes

Phonemes are the sounds we hear and represent the concept of a sound in a common language. Phonemes can appear in the same positions within words, leading to a change in meaning. They have been described as “the smallest potential unit of difference between similar words recognizable as different to the native [speaker].”

Phonics involves matching phonemes to graphemes in printed words. For example, the sounds /k/ and /t/ can both occur at the beginning of words in English, as seen in the words “call” and “tall.” These sounds are distinct, so we understand the words to have different meanings (passing the minimal pair test—words that differ in only a single sound but differ in meaning). As a result, /k/ and /t/ are considered separate phonemes because they contrast with each other when placed in the same positions.

Graphemes

Graphemes are letters or groups of letters corresponding to those sounds in writing. Understanding graphemes is essential for decoding and spelling words accurately, as graphemes illustrate how written symbols correspond to spoken sounds.  Graphemes can include individual letters of the alphabet that represent specific sounds—for example, the “b” in bat represents the /b/ sound—or may

 signify combinations of letters representing a sound, such as the digraph “sh” in ship to represent the /ʃ/ sound. Some graphemes, such as “ough”—found in the words "thought" or "rough"—can consist of four letters or more and may represent more than one sound. For example, "ough" represents the /oʊ/ sound in "though," /ɔː/ in "thought," or /ʌf/ in "rough."

Key Components of Phonics

After developing phonological awareness, students must develop distinct phonics skills to become successful readers and writers. These include:

• Instant letter recognition (the ability to quickly identify uppercase and lowercase letters) 

• Letter-sound correspondences (the understanding that letters [graphemes] represent specific sounds [phonemes]) 

• Vowel sounds

• Consonant sounds

Instant Letter Recognition

To read with automaticity—both quickly and accurately—students must be able to identify each letter of the alphabet without hesitation. This skill is crucial for fluent reading and writing.

Uppercase Letters

Students must learn to recognize and understand that uppercase letters begin sentences and are used to describe proper nouns.

Lowercase Letters

These small forms of letters are the most commonly used in text. Students must be able to recognize lowercase letters to read texts.

Letter-Sound Correspondences

Letter-sound correspondences describe the relationship between written letters (graphemes) and their spoken sounds (phonemes). Students must learn which letters represent specific sounds in speech. These include:

Vowel Sounds

The sounds produced by vowels (a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y). These include:

• Short vowel sounds: "cat," "pet," "sit," "hot," "cut"

• Long vowel sounds: "cake," "bee," "kite," "note," "cute"

• Other vowel sounds: "book" and "car"

Consonant Sounds

Most sounds are produced by consonants. By understanding consonants' frequency, you can focus on teaching students strategies that emphasize these sounds. Based on frequency analysis, the most common consonant sounds in American English include:

• /n/: The most frequent consonant sound, appearing in many common words such as "no," "and," and "in."

• /r/: A close second, this sound is prevalent in words like "run," "are," and "for."

• /t/: Another highly frequent consonant found in words like "to," "that," and "it."

Digraphs

Digraphs describe two letters representing a single sound and can include two consonants or two vowels. Students must learn each digraph's “new” sound and understand that the two letters blend to make a distinct sound. Most students learn digraphs in late kindergarten and first grade after mastering individual consonant sounds, short vowel sounds, and blending sounds to read CVC (Consonant-Vowel-Consonant) words.

Examples of common digraphs include:

• Consonant digraphs: "sh," "ch," "th," and "wh"

• Vowel digraphs: "ea," "oa," and "ai"

Students may have difficulty learning digraphs because some letter pairs don't always behave similarly. For example, a digraph can sound different in different words, like how "ch" changes from "cheese" to "school." Other times, digraphs that look the same can sound different, such as "th" in "that" and "thin." Students might get confused and try to say each letter separately instead of blending them into one sound. Teaching and explaining digraphs clearly and thoroughly is essential to avoid these mix-ups. Without explicit instruction, students might not fully understand how these unique letter pairs work in words.

Diphthongs

Diphthongs are vowel sounds in which speakers move from one vowel sound to another within a single syllable. Learning diphthongs can be challenging for students as some diphthongs sound different in different words, which can be confusing. Students might also try to simplify diphthongs into single vowel sounds, changing the meaning of those words. 

Here are examples of the eight primary diphthongs in American English:

1. /aɪ/ (sounds like "eye"): Found in the words "my," "cry," "like," or "bright"

2. /eɪ/ (sounds like "great"): Found in the words "bake," "rain," "lay," or "eight"

3. /oʊ/ (sounds like "boat"): Found in the words "go," "oh," "slow," or "loan"

4. /aʊ/ (sounds like "ow!"): Found in the words "bound," "brown," or "now"

5. /eə/ (sounds like "air"): Found in the words "pair," "stare," or "bear"

6. /ɪə/ (sounds like "ear"): Found in the words "here," "year," or "pier"

7. /ɔɪ/ (sounds like "oil"): Found in the words "boy," "foil," or "coin"

8. /ʊə/ (sounds like "cure"): Found in the words "sure" and "manure"

It can be especially challenging for Emergent Bilingual students to distinguish between diphthongs, particularly if their first language doesn't include certain diphthongs. These students often struggle to stress both parts of the diphthong equally and may not hear them enough in everyday English to get used to them. 

Making a smooth transition between two vowel sounds can also be challenging for beginning readers. To help all students learn diphthongs, you can use pictures, include lots of listening and repeating practice, and incorporate activities like sorting words and playing games into your instruction.

Syllable Types

Breaking words into syllables is another strategy students can use to identify complex words. To decode words correctly, readers must know the different syllable types. They first learn simple, one-syllable words before moving to longer ones. When they come across a longer word, you can teach them to break the word into smaller parts, called syllables, using specific syllable division patterns. It’s important to teach these patterns in the order they commonly appear in English. The following main six syllable types help readers figure out how to pronounce each part:

1. Closed syllables (e.g., "cat")

2. Vowel-consonant-e syllables (e.g., "cake")

3. Open syllables (e.g., "me")

4. Vowel team syllables (e.g., "boat")

5. R-controlled syllables (e.g., "car")

6. Consonant-le syllables (e.g., "table")

Understanding these components can also help students spell more accurately.

Syllable Division Patterns

Syllables can be broken up following one of four patterns. The two most frequent patterns are: 

• VCCV: Vowel Consonant Consonant Vowel (found in the words nap/kin or bas/ket)

• VCV: Vowel Consonant Vowel (found in the words i/tem and ba/sic) 

Teaching students these patterns can help them determine the vowel sounds in words of two or more syllables.

VCCV: Vowel Consonant Consonant Vowel

This pattern typically divides between the two consonants.

• rab/bit

• sis/ter

• den/tist

VCV: Vowel Consonant Vowel

This pattern usually divides before the consonant, making the first vowel long.

• o/pen

• e/ven

• mu/sic

In some VCV words, syllables might divide after the consonant, resulting in a short first vowel sound. For example:

• lev/el

• mod/el

• cab/in

Students must understand that syllable division depends on a word's pronunciation and origin. Teaching these patterns can help your students better recognize common syllable structures and improve their ability to decode multisyllabic words.

Spelling Patterns and Rules

Spelling patterns help students understand how to spell a word that includes more than one sound. These rules determine when writers should double, drop, or change a letter in a spelled word. The most frequent patterns and rules are as follows.

Spelling /k/ with c, k, or ck

Students must learn that there are multiple spellings of phonemes in the English language to decode and spell words accurately. Teaching students the spellings and rules for the /k/ sound gives them the tools to recognize and accurately spell words that include this sound.

The most common spellings of the /k/ sound are:

• c

• k

• -ck

The Doubling Rule

The word “hoping” has a different meaning than “hopping,” due to the doubling rule. When a base word has one syllable, one vowel, and one consonant at the end, the rule says to double the final consonant before adding a vowel suffix. Teaching students the doubling rule helps them spell words that cannot be spelled exactly as they sound.

For example:

• hop + ing = hopping vs hope + ing = hoping

• star + ing = starring vs stare + ing = staring

In words in which the accent is on the second syllable, the consonant must be doubled, too. See the differences between these examples:

• stir + ing = stirring

• compel (pel is accented) + ing = compelling

• infer (fer is accented) + ing = inferring

Approaches to Phonics Instruction

As you plan your literacy instruction, you can incorporate phonics lessons into your teaching using several approaches. According to the National Literacy Trust, these are the most commonly followed phonics approaches:

• Analogy phonics—This refers to teaching students unfamiliar words by analogy to known words (e.g., recognizing that the rime segment of an unfamiliar word is identical to that of a familiar word, and then blending the known rime with the new word onset, such as reading "brick" by recognizing that -ick is contained in the known word "kick," or reading "stump" by analogy to "jump").

• Analytic phonics—This refers to teaching students to analyze letter-sound relations in previously learned words to avoid pronouncing sounds in isolation.

• Embedded phonics—This refers to teaching students phonics skills by embedding phonics instruction in text reading, a more implicit approach that relies to some extent on incidental learning.

• Phonics through spelling—This refers to teaching students to segment words into phonemes and to select letters for those phonemes (i.e., teaching students to spell words phonemically).

• Synthetic phonics—This refers to teaching students explicitly to convert letters into sounds (phonemes) and then blend the sounds to form recognizable words.

Synthetic Phonics 

The most widely used instructional approach, synthetic phonics, asks students to identify which phonemes (sounds) are associated with particular graphemes (letters) in isolation and when blended together (synthesized). 

You use synthetic phonics when you teach students to break a single-syllable word, such as "cat," into its three letters, pronounce a phoneme for each letter in turn (i.e., /k æ, t/), and blend the phonemes together to form a word. 

Characteristics of Synthetic Phonics

Synthetic phonics takes a systematic approach to teaching both structured and explicit phonics. Students learn phonics concepts in a clear, logical sequence, progressing from simple to more complex. For example, in Lexia® Core5® Reading, students learn all 44 unique sounds (phonemes) of English along with their corresponding letter representations (graphemes). When students learn six to eight alphabet sounds, they start blending to read words, demonstrating why they are learning them.

Core5 uses carefully controlled reading materials that only include taught sound-letter relationships, allowing students to practice their skills in context. Students build new knowledge upon previously taught concepts, ensuring a logical progression of skills. This approach aligns with research-based practices for effective phonics instruction, supporting students in developing strong foundational reading skills.

Research shows that systematic synthetic phonics instruction positively and significantly affected the reading skills of students with disabilities. These children improved substantially in their ability to read words and showed gains in their ability to process text due to systematic synthetic phonics instruction. This type of phonics instruction benefits both students with learning disabilities and low-achieving students who are not disabled. Moreover, systematic synthetic phonics instruction was significantly more effective in improving low socioeconomic status (SES) children's alphabetic knowledge and word reading skills than instructional approaches focusing less on these initial reading skills. 

Across all grade levels, systematic phonics instruction improved the ability of good readers to spell. The impact was strongest for kindergartners and decreased in later grades. Most scholars argue that a synthetic approach is best (Johnston, McGeown & Watson, 2012), although most teachers embrace various methods when teaching students to read.

Other Types of Phonics

Analytical Phonics

Analytic phonics involves teaching children to read through word association and rhyme, and identifying similarities between words. Students look at a common phoneme in a set of words in which each word contains the same phoneme. For example, you would ask students how the following words are alike: "pat," "park," "push," and "pen."

Analogy Phonics

Analogy phonics asks students to identify phonic elements according to the phonograms in a word. A phonogram, known in linguistics as a rime, comprises the vowel and all the following sounds, such as –ake in the word "cake." Children use these phonograms to learn about “word families,” such as "cake," "make," "bake," and "fake."

Embedded Phonics

With this approach, phonics forms one part of a whole language or balanced literacy program. In embedded phonics, educators teach phonics in the context of literature rather than in separate lessons. Students learn phonics when they encounter them in text rather than systematically.

Research does not support analytical, analogy, and embedded phonics approaches to teaching phonics. The National Reading Panel found that many synthetic phonics approaches use direct instruction and opportunities for students to apply skills. On the other hand, embedded phonics approaches are typically less explicit and use decodable text for practice less frequently. However, the phonics concepts to be learned can still be presented systematically. 

Fluency: The End Goal of Phonics Instruction

The reason students learn phonics skills is so they can become fluent readers. Research has shown that students with strong oral fluency skills are likelier to succeed across other literacy pillars. This is because fluency serves as a bridge between decoding and reading comprehension.

Here are some ways you can develop phonics skills to build fluency.

Practice at the Word Level

Phonics at the word level requires teaching students how to read individual words by connecting letters to their sounds. This includes blending sounds together to form words, like putting together the sounds /k/, /æ/, and /t/ to say "cat." 

You would teach students to decode new words by sounding them out and working with word families like -at or -ink. Students must also recognize common sight words that don’t follow regular sound rules. As they progress, students should be able to tackle longer words by breaking them into smaller parts or syllables and learning how prefixes and suffixes change the meaning of words. Here are some activities you could do with your students to practice at the word level:

• Word building: Students use letter tiles to build words, changing one letter at a time (e.g., cat → hat → hot → hop).

• Word sorts: Ask students to categorize words based on shared phonics patterns, such as words with short “a” sounds.

Practice at the Sentence Level

When you have students practice phonics at the sentence level, you can help them focus on reading and writing complete sentences rather than on one word at a time. This requires students to blend sounds to read words in context, decode unfamiliar words, spell words correctly, and understand how words support one another in sentences. 

Teaching students these skills can help them improve their understanding of what they read. Practice at the sentence level also enhances students' writing skills by showing them what sentence structure looks like. Mastering phonics at this level strengthens students' reading and writing abilities. Here are some activities that reinforce phonics skills at the word level:

• Jumbled sentences: Have students rearrange words to form correct sentences using target phonics patterns.

• Dictation sentences: Read sentences aloud and ask students to write them down, focusing on spelling words with learned phonics patterns.

Practice at the Text Level

When students apply phonics at the text level, they use their skills to read and understand entire passages or books, not just individual words or sentences. Practice at the text level helps students connect their knowledge of letter-sound relationships to reading text. When they can decode unfamiliar words in context, they can focus more on what they’re reading—not how to read. This allows them to tackle longer, more complex texts independently, building their confidence and enjoyment of reading. By mastering phonics at the text level, students develop stronger overall literacy skills, which are crucial for academic success. Some ways to practice phonics at the text level include:

• Decodable text fluency practice: Ask students to read decodable texts multiple times to improve accuracy and speed.

• Partner reading: Have students read a text in pairs, focusing on applying phonics skills to unfamiliar words.

Phonics Activities to Get Started

Students learn to associate sounds with letters through explicit teaching and practice… lots of practice. Each of your students enters the classroom with diverse experiences and prior knowledge, and as an educator, you will need to meet all of their needs, regardless of their language background or skill level. This is challenging to balance, especially when some students might need more support than others. You can help students build foundational reading skills through several evidence-based phonics activities. Here are a few examples:

1. Missing letters in rhyming words

This activity reinforces CVC words, which helps build the foundation for students’ phonic knowledge.

• First, display two pictures of rhyming CVC words (e.g., "dog" and "log").

• Next, place either the word ending (e.g., _og) or the word beginning (e.g., lo_) underneath the pictures, labeling them and emphasizing either the first or last consonants.

• Present a letter to the students and have them point to the picture that starts (or ends) with that letter.

• Have students make the sound and write the letter to complete the word, air-write the letter, or trace the letter shape on a card.

• Repeat with additional pairs of rhyming CVC words.

2. Missing letters with non-rhyming words

Using the same structure described in the previous exercise, present students with images of CVC non-rhyming words (e.g., "cat," "map," "ten," etc.), with the initial or final consonant sound missing (e.g., _at/ca_, _ap/ma_, _en/te_, etc.). Ask students to provide the initial or final consonant sound and fill in the blank with the correct letter.

3. Letter tiles

For this activity, you’ll choose a word ending to present to your students (e.g., _at) and give them a bag filled with letter tiles that could work as the first consonant. Ask the students to pull a letter tile from the bag, place it in the blank spot, and read the word using the “blending” strategy. Blending is when one reads a word from left to right, linking each letter or group of letters to their corresponding sound.

Letter-sound correspondence is one of the basic building blocks of learning literacy. There are many ways you can have students practice associating sounds with letters in fun, engaging, and educational ways. By incorporating various activities when teaching literacy, you can target all types of learning styles (tactile, visual, auditory, etc.) and support students at multiple levels.

Core5 Provides Built-in Phonics Practice

Phonics activities in Core5 follow an explicit, systematic progression, beginning with letter-sound correspondence practice. Students then engage in activities that teach them how to decode isolated words, phrases, sentences, and paragraphs. Core5 also helps students understand syllable types, syllable division, and simple spelling rules based on letter-sound correspondences. Activities progress in difficulty, allowing students to apply phonic word attack strategies to read decodable phrases and sentences. Activities throughout the phonics strand aim to strengthen students’ phonemic awareness skills and build fluency.

Discover how you can incorporate activities in your classroom to develop students’ reading skills in our blog post, Ten Fun In-Class Letter-Sound Correspondence Activities.