Teaching students to read often looks easy to people on the outside looking in. But as teachers we know it can be as complex as surgery! Our job is to create new pathways in our students’ brains each and every day and teach them to connect speech to symbols on the page.
For some students this comes naturally and it almost seems like they are teaching themselves to read. But what about the other kids in your class? The ones that are trying and working hard and yet learning to read does not come quickly or easily? For these students learning to read requires extra support in the form of systematic and structured phonics intervention.
Here are my 5 Simple Steps to Successful Phonics Intervention and what to do each step of the way from start to finish to ensure that all your students close each gap and grow to be strong and confident readers.
It may seem like the task of determining exactly what skills a struggling reader is missing and how to teach these specific areas of need can feel overwhelming, it doesn’t have to be that way! By collecting and using data to determine what to teach your students, creating a plan, and using engaging research based materials targeted to teach specific phonics skills you can be sure that learning to read is not left to chance.
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STEP 1. Administer a Phonics Assessment
Before you dive into using any kind of Phonics Intervention you need to determine what the needs of your students are. In order to do this the best place to start is with your tier 1 universal literacy screening benchmark data. These assessments, such as Fast Bridge, DIBELS, and Acadience Learning, are used to screen all students on their foundational reading skills such as phonemic awareness, decoding, and fluency.
If you have students that are identified as below benchmark on these types of assessments the best thing to do is administer a high quality diagnostic phonics assessment. Look for one that focuses on specific phonics skills, is easy to use, and most importantly, is aligned to the science of reading. And remember, work smarter not harder, and only assess your students that are below benchmark on the universal screener. That’s the job of the tier 1 assessment - help identify students that we need to assess further to help plan intervention.
A phonics assessment will give you specific data about the skills each student is proficient in and which skills they struggle with. The skills in a phonics assessment increase in complexity from the most basic - letter names and sounds, to more difficult - decoding multisyllabic words.
For most students it is a good idea to start at the beginning of the assessment, even if you believe they know those basic skills. This gives students confidence and sometimes you may be surprised to find out that a student struggles with a skill you assumed they knew.
The harder and more important thing is to determine when to stop with each student. The rule of thumb I like to use is when a student scores less than 50% on any one subtest. This allows you to determine where a student struggles but does not create a level of frustration for your students when they encounter skills that are simply too hard for them.
Pro Tip 1:
Having a good testing environment is essential for getting accurate information about each student and their needs. Set yourself and your students up for success by prepping all your assessments ahead of time. Label them with your students’ names and getting the student cards prepared on card stock so that they last throughout the year. I prefer to use a Phonics Assessment with task cards that are student friendly and meant to be put on a ring making it easy to flip quickly from one skill to the next.
Pro Tip 2:
Minimizing disruptions and distractions for both yourself and the student participating in the testing is also important. Choose a quiet time of the day when the rest of your class is engaged in an independent task to administer phonics assessments. Remember to keep in mind how long your class will maintain this level of independence. It's okay if you only get one or two assessments done at a time. Better to break your testing up into increments rather than let the rest of your class descend into chaos.
STEP 2. Determine Phonics Intervention Needs
Once you have assessed your students, the next step to planning strong phonics intervention is to determine their needs based on the data you collected. For each student, identify the first skill that they did not pass. This is likely going to be different from the last skill you tested them on, so look carefully through each sub test. My rule of thumb is if a student did not get 80% or better on a skill that is an area of need for them.
As you determine the areas of need for each student, sort your assessments into groups or keep notes of students that have similar deficits. This will allow you to see which students may be able to be grouped together for instruction.
Another thing that is important to be on the lookout for is any skills that all or almost all of your students struggled with. For example, if the majority of your students did not pass the digraphs portion of the screener you will want to reteach digraphs as a whole group review rather than in a small group.
Once you’ve determined which skills need to be taught in whole group and the ones that will be for each small group, you will need to set up your data trackers. With these, you can keep track of progress and see growth from the baseline assessment all the way through proficiency.
Pro Tip:
I also like to send home a note to parents about how their student did on the phonics assessment. This open communication is so important and allows parents to know what they can work on at home too. I recommend giving them data trackers that align directly to their child’s phonics assessment and a letter.
STEP 3. Prep Phonics Intervention Materials
Your groups are now made and the skills to teach them have been identified. Now it's time to select and prep materials that target the needs of your students.
Teaching an impactful small group starts with strong routines. So my suggestion is to create a structure that you can use with every group and then plug in the activities and materials that each group needs.
The structure that I use is:
- 1 Minute Phonemic Awareness Warm-Up
- 2 Minute Phonics Review Skill
- High Frequency Word Practice (using the heart words strategy)
- Skill Focus Lesson: this is where students will be learning and practicing the target phonics skill
- Word Reading with Target Phonics Skill
- Reading in Text
I use an editable weekly planning guide to plan my groups. Here’s an example set of my plans:
As you can see I have my basic structure on the left hand side of the plan and then just simply put the links to the materials I’m using for each group. This makes it really easy for me to find all the different resources I’m using in one quick spot. It also gives me a place to record which groups I see and keep track of their progress.
After I create my lesson plans I get to work pulling out the materials I need. One thing that’s helped me is a Phonics Intervention Kit for many of my target skill lessons.
I printed all these materials out and have them stored by my small group table ready to go with the materials I need like magnetic letters. That way all I need to do is pull out what I need for each group!
Another resource that I find super helpful for teaching phonics intervention is my Decodable Reader Library. There’s a book for EVERY target phonics skill. So, after students practice the phonics skill in isolation they get a chance to apply it in text and feel confident because there’s never unexpected non-decodable words.
The best teaching is born from being well prepared. So spend the time in the beginning to get materials prepped and ready. Then keep them stored in a way that you can use them for group after group for many years to come.
STEP 4. Teach Using Phonics Intervention Resources
Now comes the fun part - teaching your small groups! Make sure you teach your groups where your materials are handy and you have a good view of the rest of your classroom so you can see the students that aren’t in your group.
Pro Tip 1:
Make sure you keep track of time so you can maximize the number of groups you can work with. I find around 15 minutes is the sweet spot for me. I always start with my most needy group first. That way I make sure they are seen every day. From there I keep track of which groups I see daily so I know who I need to bring to my table each day.
Pro Tip 2:
One important thing to keep in mind when teaching phonics intervention is your pacing. There’s a lot to cover in a short amount of time. It’s important to keep your pace perky and not waste too much transition time between skills.
It's also okay if you don’t get everything you had planned completed! I mark on my plans where each group finished, so I know exactly where to start back up the next time I see that group.
Do you have a scripted phonics or reading program that you are required to use? Does it seem like it may be impossible to do phonics intervention because of having to use this program? I want to assure you that it is absolutely not impossible!
Many scripted programs have amazing phonics components that can be used to teach small groups. I start with my scripted program, find the pieces that will align with the skills I am teaching my groups and then supplement with materials that create hands-on skill-based learning experiences. Scripted programs are not the enemy of good teaching, they actually can be a strong foundation to build great instruction from.
STEP 5. Re-Assess and Modify Instruction
We’ve reached the final step in teaching phonics intervention - reassess to check for progress and modify your instruction. This step is a quick one and meant to guide where your students need to go next.
There’s no need to give a full phonics assessment after teaching each skill. Instead, give a quick assessment to check if your students have mastered the skill you have been teaching. Record their progress on their data tracker and then refer to the phonics assessment to confirm which skills you need to teach next.
One question that often comes up when re-assessing and planning for the next set of lessons is what to do if not everyone in the group is successful?
Knowing that this is going to inevitably happen from time to time is a good place to start. If you notice the whole group is continuing to struggle, then by all means continue to teach that skill. But, if only one or two students are not making adequate progress it's time to make some tough teacher decisions.
If those students are close to passing, then the best decision is probably to continue on, but make sure to continue to incorporate the current target skill as the review skill moving forward to give extra practice.
If it is becoming clear that the pace of the group is just too fast or slow for a particular student then you should consider moving that student to a different group. Phonics intervention groups should be flexible and based on data! So if the data is indicating that students need to switch groups, then by all means do it!
Don’t forget to re-screen using the same phonics assessment at least three times a year to track overall growth and progress and celebrate with students all they have learned!
Phonics Intervention and small groups are critical for teaching your students to be strong confident readers. Remember you’ve got all the skills and steps you need with a simple count to five:
- Assess with a quality phonics assessment
- Determine the needs of your students based on data
- Pick and prep materials targeted to the needs of your students
- Teach, teach, teach!
- Reassess and celebrate growth and progress!
So don’t be shy about digging into the data and filling those gaps and helping your students learn to read.
Written By: Andrea Gudmundson
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