5 Components you need for a successful reading lesson — 5 Components You Need for a Successful Lesson Plan for Phonics

Creating the Best Lesson Plans for Phonics

Can’t find the right phonics curriculum? Are you having trouble finding all of the components you need to create a successful lesson plan for phonics?

Hello, I’m Andrea! I am a Title I teacher in Iowa and have taught small reading and math groups for over 10 years. I have a reading and math endorsement and a master’s degree in special education. My goal is to help my fellow teachers and parents who need help planning and preparing for reading groups. Below I will share a checklist of the 5 components you will need to help you create phonics-based guided reading lesson plans!

I would say my passion is watching my students grow in all areas of their lives, especially reading and math. I meet with students who are struggling to read, write and understand math. I personally know the challenges my students face while they are learning. When I was in elementary school, I was diagnosed with dyslexia. Ever since I can remember, I hated reading and writing. Math was the subject for me! I didn’t know then, but it was because my brain was just wired differently. Things took longer for me to process and understand.

At the beginning of my teaching career, I remember learning a lot about teaching reading comprehension and fluency but not much about students who had difficulty understanding how to read. I honestly didn’t understand phonics until I taught kindergarten back in 2009. Something in my brain clicked when I started teaching sound-to-letter correspondence. I finally understood that sounds and letters worked together. Knowing that I could decode each sound I saw and blend those sounds to make a word was astonishing. Understanding the difference between phonological/phonemic awareness and phonics was a game-changer. I finally knew what I needed to do to help my students genuinely become readers!

My district does not have a curriculum for Title. I have had to create all of my lessons for over 12 groups with 6+ students in each group. Planning took a lot of time and finding the needed resources was challenging. This was extremely frustrating and took time away from my family. I NEEDED a curriculum to help with this problem. So I decided to generate my own phonics-based guided reading lesson plans. When I started planning, I had to sit down and think, “What were the main components I needed for these plans?” I took several classes, including LETRS (twice), Orton-Gillingham, looked into 95% Group Materials, read The Science of Reading, and much more. Finally, I found what I needed to integrate into my reading groups! I could use and adapt these lessons for all of my groups and even differentiate for students within those groups. In my experience, these lessons skyrocketed my students' reading progress with repetitive and consistent use! I would love to share my secret with you. See how I use phonics-based guided reading lesson plans below.

Successful Phonics Instruction

I had a fourth-grade student who had been in extra reading groups since the middle of first grade when she moved to our school. This was the year I knew I had to change my teaching methods! I started implementing one out of the 5 components to my phonics-based guided reading lessons plans. I started with just one because I wanted to perfect this element. Slow and steady! I knew the best place to start would be to ensure I targeted the phonics skills my students needed help with. In this case, my student and her group needed to work on letter sounds and consonant vowel consonant (CVC) words. With grade-level text, she went from reading 4 words per minute to reading 12 words! In our state, we use the CBM FAST screener to measure this. She was nowhere close to this benchmark, but I saw success! She had tripled her word count and made growth.

The next year, I implemented the next 2 components. This was important because I knew my students needed to understand the sound/letter correspondence. With a full year of extra reading support and instruction with 3 out of the 5 components, my student grew 30 words in a year! WOW! She still was not meeting the benchmark, but she had quadrupled her beginning-of-the-year score on grade-level text.

At the beginning of her third-grade year, her FAST score did not go down from the end of her second-grade year. As you know, this was a big win for her! Three months of the “Summer Slide” did not affect her reading score. She had retained what she had learned from the previous year and could still apply those phonics skills to her reading. She still needed to be in my reading group because she was not proficient on the screener. This particular student went from being below the benchmark by 50% to missing the benchmark by two words at the end of her third-grade year.

This year I was so excited! I had 3 out of the 5 components mastered, and I wanted to incorporate the last 2 components into my curriculum. My students were able to decode words well, but we’re struggling to apply the phonics skills to text. The last 2 of my components helped with this. I finally had all 5 components ready for my phonics-based guided reading lesson plans.

In the fall of my student’s fourth-grade year, she scored 119 wpm, right at the benchmark! I continued to keep her in my group because I wanted to see her continue to make growth. By the winter screener, she had met benchmark +10 extra words! She had gone from being way below the benchmark in first grade to surpassing it in fourth grade. Using these 5 components in my phonics-based guided reading lesson plans with repetition and consistent use really helped my student close the achievement gap in reading. I saw this progress in many more students!

How to Teach Phonics the Right Way

Inside this FREE Step-by-Step Guide, I would like to share with you 5 components you will need for successful phonics-based guided reading lesson plans. Having a strong foundation and curriculum will allow your students to read correctly and automatically fluently.

This Step-by-Step Guide will teach you: