Systematic phonics instruction follows a sequential and planned set of phonics elements that gradually builds from base elements to more subtle and complex structures. Teachers follow a scope and sequence, as opposed to implicit phonics instruction that addresses phonics as it comes up in text.

As we stated on our Keys to Success page, phonics instruction must be systematic and sequential. In other words, letters and sounds are taught first. Then letters are combined to make words and finally words are used to construct sentences. To make things easier for you, we have detailed the process in eight easy to understand steps.

Phonics instruction that is systematic and explicit teaches the major phoneme–grapheme correspondences in a planned sequence. Using a sequence to guide the order of phonics knowledge enables early readers to start with a small set of letters which can be combined to make vowel-consonant (VC) and consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) words.