Strategies for Phonics Reading Intervention

Searching for the most effective strategies for phonics instruction and intervention? Here is a list of 13 effective and engaging phonics strategies that will focus on the most important phonics skills while using reading intervention strategies that work.

What is phonics?

• Phonics is the reading strategy of connecting sounds with letters.
• It’s when students begin to learn the sounds that letters make, recognize phonics patterns, and decode words.
• Phonics instruction is the gateway to reading printed text, and it is so empowering!

I explain all the details of what phonics is in more detail in this blog post!

 

Why phonics intervention?

When students struggle to use phonics strategies while reading, it really slows them down and prevents them from reading fluently. When they aren’t reading fluently, they aren’t able to comprehend what they read. It’s all a big chain, and each step is crucial.

Phonics intervention for struggling readers empowers students with the tools they need to read unfamiliar text. When they can apply phonics strategies to decode new words, any text becomes accessible. That opens up a whole new world of possibilities for them!

If intervention feels overwhelming for you, try using this FREE Reading Intervention Cheat Sheet as a starting point. It can help you identify struggling readers, pinpoint where they need help, and give you tons of activity ideas to help them.

 

✨Be sure to make it down to strategy #7 to download some FREE phonics flashcards!✨

 

Phonics Intervention Strategies

So we know that phonics intervention is important, but how do we do it?? Here is a list of 13 of my most engaging and EFFECTIVE phonics strategies for struggling readers. They are each focused on important skills and have made a huge impact on my students. I hope they can help yours too!

If you need some more ideas for activities, check out my Ultimate List of Reading Intervention Activities, or for more general reading intervention strategies you can use for any skill, check out these 11 Reading Intervention Strategies that Work!

 

Strategies for Phonics #1: VOWELS

One of the first and most important strategies for phonics you should include in your phonics intervention, is a focus on the vowels.

• Differentiating between all of the long and short vowel sounds is such a huge phonics skill to learn, because every single syllable of every single word includes a vowel sound.
• Vowels also sound very similar to each other, the differences are more subtle. This makes telling the sounds apart trickier for beginning readers, and it often takes a bit more time than learning the consonant sounds.
• Also, the fact that there are at least two different sounds for each vowel (short, long, and sometimes schwa), makes it even more confusing.

Spend a good amount of time at the beginning solidifying vowel sounds and it will save you a lot of back-tracking.

This picture is from my Phonics Intervention Binder in the section focusing on silent e and long and short vowels. It’s so important that students hone down on the vowel sounds first, before trying to move onto complex phonics patterns.

 

Strategies for Phonics #2: CVC WORDS

After vowels, cvc words are the next big phonics strategy to focus on.

• CVC words are words that start with a consonant, have a vowel in the middle, and end in a consonant.
• Being able to read a single-syllable word gives you building blocks to read multisyllabic words.
• Solidifying reading CVC words ensures that students are able to read correct letter sounds, blend the sounds together, and read a syllable.
• If students are struggling reading CVC words, they will struggle even more trying to apply complex phonics patterns and rules.

Solidify the CVC words first, then start branching out.

I have an entire Intervention Binder focused on CVC words, because they are that important!

 

Strategies for Phonics #3: Word slide

I know I’ve shared this phonics strategy in my Intervention Strategies for Phonemic Awareness blog post, but you can use it just with sounds for phonemic awareness, or add written words to use it as a phonics strategy.

When students are first learning to blend, teach them to use their arm slide to blend the sounds together.

1. Have them stick their arm out.
2. Put their other hand on top of their shoulder and say the first sound of the word.
3. Then, have them pat down their arm saying a sound for each letter as they pat.
4. When they finish, have them put their hand back up to their shoulder, and slide it down the “slide” as they say the whole word.

Here’s a video showing arm slides in action:

Encourage beginning readers to use their arm slides when they are reading and need to sound out a word. You can see a video demonstration of this on my Instagram page under the “Teaching” story highlights (the purple circle with the apple).

 

Strategies for Phonics #4: To say the whole word, sound it out in your head

After students master verbal blending, they need to move on to the more advanced phonics strategy of saying the whole word without sounding it out. This is especially important for CVC words. To encourage your struggling reader to say the whole word, tell them they can sound the word out in their heads. Have them…

1. zip their mouths
2. put their finger under each letter
3. nod as they “think” the sound each letter makes in their head
4. then say the whole word out loud

If this is too hard for them, try whispering the sounds for a while before moving them into their head.

 

Strategies for Phonics #5: Nonsense words

I’ve heard the argument before that practicing nonsense words is a meaningless activity and a waste of time. They are words that students will never read in real life. However, there is a very good reason for practicing them!

• First of all, it solidifies being able to read a single syllable. Remember, all words are made up of at least one syllable, so learning to read single syllables is the first step.
• In addition, reading nonsense words gives practice decoding unfamiliar words.

Sometimes students rely on memory and context to read words, which is great for common words and fluency. However, as they get older and start reading more academic texts, they will come across new (& harder) words. They will need to read them but will be unfamiliar with them and context will not be enough for them to figure it out. It’s important for them to have decoding skills to break words apart into syllables and figure them out. Practicing nonsense words give them those phonics strategies to do just that.

 

Strategies for Phonics #6: Review and repetition

There are many tricky phonics rules and patterns, and in the rush to cover them all it is tempting to teach and move on. But if the phonics pattern is taught one week, and then not reviewed again for several weeks, students are bound to forget them or mix them up with all those rules swimming around in their heads.

Try your best to integrate a review of old phonics patterns in your practice.

• When you model reading passages, stop to highlight previously learned patterns.
• Include older practice words in games and assignments.
• Try to do a quick, comprehensive review of all of the learned phonics patterns every day.

The picture above shows pages from my Phonemic Awareness Intervention Binder and my Blending Slide Cards practicing the same word in different formats.

 

Strategies for Phonics #7: Chants

One of my most successful strategies for phonics instruction was doing a chant every day. I would make it fun and energetic by standing on a desk or a table, and getting a rhythm into it. Before I knew it, both the kids and I were dancing to the chant as we practiced our phonics!

Our chant consisted of going through a stack of giant flashcards of all of the phonics sounds we had learned so far. I would…

1. hold up the flashcard
2. say the letter name(s)
3. say the sound(s) those letters made while holding up a finger for each sound (more on the fingers down below!)
4. Then the students repeat the same thing after me.

It was a great quick review every day!

Here are some free phonics flashcards you can download and use with your chants!

 

Strategies for Phonics #8: Visual associations/flashcards

I think the flashcards were a huge part of the success of the phonics strategy mentioned above. Each flashcard had the phonics pattern (letters) and a big picture of a word with that sound. Pictures are huge for visual learners, so try to have as many picture examples as you can while teaching phonics. This will give students something to associate with each phonics pattern and help them remember the sound.

Phonics Flashcards Options:

• Here are amazon links to some classic letter flashcards
• I LOVE these mnemonic letter sounds flashcards. (Mnemonic pictures are scientifically proven to help students remember letter names and sounds!)
• Here are some phonics flashcards with visuals.
• Or, you can download and print these free phonics flashcards instead.
• Another idea is to use ABC posters as flashcards, like these. You could keep them full size so the whole class can see, or print them 2 to a page for smaller flashcards. Just use cardstock and maybe laminate them so they last.

Strategies for Phonics #9: Using your fingers

I learned this strategy for phonics from a great mentor teacher my first year. Fingers are great because: 1. You always have them on you, 2. They are very tactile and literally “hands on”.

Using your fingers is a great way to show phonics sounds in a more concrete way.

1. Start with holding up a finger for each sound a letter makes when learning letter sounds (like mentioned in strategies for phonics #7).
2. Then when learning CVC words, hold up a separate finger for each sound in the word.
3. When you add consonant and vowel digraphs (2 letters that make 1 sound), you hold up an extra finger but stick it right next to it’s “buddy” letter. So you still have 3 “finger spots”, but one of the spots has 2 fingers stuck together in it. This helps teach the concept of digraphs and 2 letters making 1 sound together.

Another hands-on idea is to use play-dough. You can read this blog post with TONS of phonics activities you can do with play-dough!

Strategies for Phonics #10: Pattern searches

Often students can read phonics patterns in isolation when they know they are practicing that sound, but when a list of words or a passage is put in front of them, all of their phonics strategies go out the window.

A great bridge for overcoming that is to use the pattern search phonics strategy.

1. Give students a list of words with different phonics patterns or a passage that has a lot of words with the focus phonics pattern.
2. Have students search for the focus phonics pattern(s) and mark them.
3. They now know where the phonics patterns are and are mentally prepped for them.
4. Have students go back and read the list or passage.

In the picture I used these CVC Poem Books and Blends Poem Books. They are great because each poem focuses on a different phonics pattern, and they promote fluency as they practice.

 

Strategies for Phonics #11: Highlighting

This phonics intervention strategy goes with strategy #10. Highlighters are AWESOME! They are bright and bold so they draw attention to important things, but they are light enough so you can still read the words through them.

Have students highlight phonics patterns to draw attention to them in words or passages. You can color code each phonics pattern for added visual organization too.

I used my Consonant Digraph Reading Passages and Mini-Books for this phonics strategy. Each passage focused on a different digraph, so it was perfect to highlight the specific digraphs.

 

Strategies for Phonics #12: Chunking

As mentioned above, reading single syllables is an essential step in reading multisyllabic words. Once they are able to read single syllables, students can put that phonics skill to use to read larger words.

Big words can be very overwhelming to students, so one of my favorite phonics strategies to use is chunking. I like to physically cover up part of the word with my hand or a notecard, and let the student just see one chunk of the word at a time. You can also chunk it by drawing lines in between syllables or drawing a “swoop” under each syllable.

 

Strategies for Phonics #13: Spelling and writing

Last of all, but still one of the most effective strategies for phonics, is writing. The act of forming the letters as you say the sounds they make sticks in your brain because it is so sensory. The writing is kinesthetic and hands-on, you visually see the letters as you write, and you hear yourself saying the sounds. It’s such a well-rounded phonics strategy! (I talk more about why multi sensory intervention activities are so effective in this post)

• Try using white boards and markers to practice writing phonics patterns and then words with those phonics patterns.
• You can get fancy with using your finger to write in colored sand.
• Or you can just use the good old paper pencil method.

 

I hope these strategies for phonics intervention have helped give you some ideas on how to help your struggling readers master their phonics skills! If you need more ideas, download this free Reading Intervention Cheat Sheet, which has a ton of specific phonics strategies you can use in your reading intervention, or check out this step by step guide of how to teach phonics! And remember, intervention does not have to be overwhelming! If you are feeling overwhelmed, head over to this post about The Key to Stress-Free Reading Intervention.

Happy reading and teaching!