Begin with basic sound components. Make or purchase phonics flash cards with two letter consonant sound combinations. Often, these will be letter combinations found most frequently within the English language, such as "th," "ck," "sh" and "ph." Use two letter combinations only after students have mastered one letter sounds. Many teachers use printable worksheets with pictures of items and all parts of the word that do not include a certain combination. For example, there might be a picture of an elephant with the letters, "ele__ant." Instruct students to place the correct sound combination in the blank. This practice allows them to see letter combinations as they appear different words and to practice how they sound as they read each word.
Practice vowel sounds with phonics flash cards. Phonics vowel practice flash cards include words with the same vowel in between different letters to make unique sound combinations, such as the letter "a," in "plate" and "eat." Instruct students to practice the twenty-seven different vowel sounds as much as possible. It is helpful to point out the different sounds with a phonetic chart that shows pictures of words with the same letters representing different vowel sounds.
Begin reading practice with books that are especially designed for emergent readers. These books will have high frequency words, such as "as," "the," "and," "because," and "that." Books for emergent readers also have one sentence per page that is highly descriptive. These books repeat words frequently so students can practice letter, sound and word combinations. Practice reading aloud to students, then ask for student volunteers to repeat after you. Eventually, students will feel comfortable reading alone or in small groups for read-aloud practice.
Create printable worksheets for homonym (words that sound the same but have different meanings) practice. Homonyms are perhaps one of the trickiest parts of the English language. It's difficult to explain why, "great" and "grate" have different meanings. However, once students learn to recognize a certain spelling and associate it with a certain meaning, reading begins to make much more sense. Use a printable worksheet with pictures to aid students in identifying which words correspond with which meaning. For example, you might show a thumbs up to represent "great" and a cheese grater for "grate." Once students can learning to associate sounds with words and words with objects, they are well on their way from being "emergent readers" to becoming readers.