This year, I’m working as a reading coach and interventionist. I love teaching phonics all day long and getting to work with different grade levels.
Throughout the years, I’ve developed favorite phonics supplies, of course. I’ve also changed my practice a lot due to recent professional learning. If I had to pick my top must-have supplies for teaching phonics, these would be them. You can find all of these on Amazon for easy shopping!
Sound Boxes and Chips
Chips, or some sort of manipulative, are a must for orthographic mapping. I’ve used cubes, mini erasers, game pieces… Bingo chips are my favorite because of their size and how easily they slide.
I make my own sound boxes, but I love this set that I found on Amazon. It’s affordable and serves as a great scaffold for your young students.
Letters, Letters, Letters!
This seems obvious, but yes, you need a LOT of letters to give students the opportunity to have hands-on experiences manipulating sounds and letters to encode and decode.
I’m not sure where my letters came from – I inherited them with my classroom – but you can find a really affordable set on Amazon here. I’d probably buy 2 to ensure you have all the letters you need to run a small group of 6 kids.
Dry Erase Dice
I love these things – the options are truly endless – but dry erase dice are definitely one of my favorite phonics supplies. I find myself using the dice often to provide decoding practice. I ask my students to “help” me label the sides, then we roll and read words. We also like to categorize our words as real or nonsense.
You can find dry erase dice at the Dollar Tree, but this set that I have from Amazon is really good quality. They are a good size, they’ve held up well, and will last me a long time. I definitely feel like I’ve gotten my money’s worth!
Pro tip: Use a Vis-a-Vis marker, not dry erase. It won’t smudge as easily but comes off with a quick wet wipe.
Decodable Books
After students learn a pattern and can decode and encode using all of your fun phonics supplies, it’s time to apply that new knowledge by reading texts.
This is where decodable books come in. You want to find books that students are able to read with their knowledge of phonics and high-frequency words, without many unknown sounds or encouragement to make guesses.
As I’ve been researching decodable books to add to my collection, I came across Bob Books. They’re worth checking out!
Fun Stuff
What’s Are Your Favorite Phonics Supplies?
I’d love to hear all about it!
Check out these curated lists on Amazon:
Please note that this post contains affiliate links. Purchasing through these links comes at no extra cost to you, but I do get a small percentage back that I use for the upkeep of this blog and other School and the City communications.
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE:
- Try Word Chaining for Phonics Practice (includes a free download!)
- What is Orthographic Mapping? (includes a free download!)
- Phonics Fluency Games