Provide opportunities to learn analogy phonics. Analogy phonics refers to the ability to recognize common sounds within words. For example, if a student is familiar with the rime, or root word "id" in the word "kid," she can apply her knowledge of the rime to other words that she does not know, helping her to decode unknown words. In order to teach analogy phonics, teach the struggling reader different rimes and have her change the onset of the rime to create different words.
Stress synthetic phonics instruction. With this type of phonics, readers break down the letters in words and apply their knowledge of the sounds that letters make to sound out unknown words. Explain to readers that they should break a word down into sounds and then blend those sounds together to create a word. For example, when decoding the word "hat," readers should break the word down into the individual sounds /h/-/a/-/t/ and then blend the sounds together to form the word.
Provide readers with ample opportunities to practice decoding. Encourage readers to read a text aloud while you follow along. Offer help with decoding, or sounding out a word when it is needed. Take note of particular words or patterns that readers are struggling with and offer direct phonics instruction to correct the decoding problems they are struggling with.