What is LETRS® Training?
How to Help Students Learn Letters and Sounds

LETRS® (Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling) training is a comprehensive professional development program designed to equip educators with the knowledge and tools to teach reading and spelling effectively. Focusing on the science of reading, LETRS provides teachers with in-depth instruction on the foundational elements of literacy, including phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. This evidence-based approach empowers teachers to address the needs of all students, ensuring they can support the development of critical skills that lead to proficient reading and writing.

As reading instruction becomes increasingly data-driven and research-backed, programs like LETRS are invaluable for teachers seeking to provide students with a strong literacy foundation. Gaining a deeper understanding of how students learn letters and sounds enables educators to better support struggling readers while enhancing overall classroom success. In this article, the experts at Booksource explore the key components of LETRS training and how it equips educators with the tools and knowledge to teach the fundamental building blocks of literacy more effectively.

Understanding LETRS Training

LETRS is designed to equip educators with a deep understanding of how children learn to read, focusing on the essential components of literacy instruction. Created by Dr. Louisa Moats and Dr. Carol Tolman, LETRS is rooted in the science of reading, a body of research that outlines effective methods for teaching reading, including phonics, phonemic awareness, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.

Unlike traditional training programs that often focus solely on surface-level strategies, LETRS dives into the core structure of language. It provides educators with the knowledge they need to effectively diagnose and address reading challenges, tailoring instruction to meet each student’s unique needs. The training covers everything from basic phonological awareness—understanding and manipulating sounds in words—to more advanced topics like syllable types, morphology, and fluency instruction.

The LETRS program is organized into several modules that allow educators to develop their skills systematically. Key topics include the relationship between sounds and letters, the role of phonemic awareness in reading success, and how to implement structured literacy practices in the classroom. Teachers who complete LETRS training gain confidence in their ability to deliver explicit, systematic instruction, ensuring that all students, including those who struggle with reading, have the tools they need to become proficient readers.

How LETRS Training Helps Educators Teach Letters and Sounds

One of the core components of LETRS training is teaching educators how to effectively help students grasp letters and sounds—skills that form the foundation of literacy. LETRS is designed to bridge the gap between theory and practice, ensuring that teachers have both the knowledge and tools necessary to implement structured literacy instruction in the classroom.

Phonemic Awareness Focus

Phonemic awareness—the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate individual sounds (phonemes) in spoken words—is a crucial skill that LETRS emphasizes. Research shows that strong phonemic awareness is one of the most reliable predictors of future reading success. LETRS provides educators with methods to help students practice recognizing and playing with sounds through activities like rhyming, segmenting sounds in words, and blending sounds together. These practices are essential for helping young learners understand the relationship between sounds and their corresponding letters.

Phonics Instruction

LETRS also offers a comprehensive approach to teaching phonics, which involves linking individual sounds to letters (graphemes) and letter patterns. Phonics instruction helps students decode words, a critical skill in the early stages of reading development. Through LETRS, educators learn how to deliver explicitly, systematic phonics lessons that follow a logical sequence, ensuring students grasp the rules of language and apply them effectively. This training empowers teachers to introduce letters and sounds in an engaging, structured manner, building students’ confidence and fluency as they progress.

The Science of Reading Connection

The science of reading—a comprehensive, evidence-based body of research on how reading is learned—guides most of LETRS instruction. This training helps teachers understand that reading success is not something that happens by chance but through deliberate and explicit instruction. Educators who undergo LETRS training are equipped to connect the teaching of letters and sounds to larger reading processes, like comprehension and fluency. This broader perspective helps teachers teach foundational reading skills in a way that fosters long-term reading success for their students.

Why is LETRS Training Important for Student Success?

LETRS training plays a pivotal role in shaping students’ reading abilities, especially when it comes to building a strong foundation in literacy. By equipping teachers with research-based methods, LETRS ensures that students not only learn letters and sounds effectively but also develop essential skills that lead to long-term reading success.

Impact on Struggling Readers

One of the key benefits of LETRS training is its focus on helping struggling readers. Many students who have trouble in reading do so because they lack a strong foundation in phonics and phonemic awareness. LETRS addresses these gaps by providing teachers with explicit, systematic strategies to teach those foundational skills. Teachers can identify students who are falling behind and implement targeted interventions that build their ability to recognize sounds, blend them into words, and ultimately read with fluency.

Data-Driven Teaching

LETRS emphasizes the use of data to inform instruction, ensuring that teachers tailor their teaching methods to the specific needs of their students. Through assessments and ongoing monitoring, educators can pinpoint where students are struggling, whether it’s in identifying individual sounds, blending letters, or applying phonics rules. With this information, teachers can make data-driven decisions about how to adjust their instruction, providing targeted support to help students master letters and sounds.

Long-Term Literacy Benefits

The benefits of LETRS extend well beyond early literacy instruction. By giving teachers a deep understanding of how reading develops, LETRS training helps educators lay the groundwork for students’ long-term reading and writing success. Once a student has a solid grasp of letters, sounds, and phonics, they can progress to more advanced literacy skills like fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. This strong foundation enables students to tackle more complex texts and fosters a lifelong love of reading. As a result, LETRS-trained teachers can have a lasting impact on their students’ academic achievement, from elementary school through high school and beyond.

How to Implement LETRS in Your Classroom

Integrating LETRS training into classroom instruction can transform how educators teach reading, particularly when it comes to letters and sounds. The structured approach provided by LETRS not only gives teachers the knowledge they need but also provides practical strategies they can implement right away.

LETRS is designed to provide educators with flexibility in applying its principles to enhance their existing curriculum, without necessarily requiring a complete overhaul. Teachers can use LETRS strategies to strengthen their phonics and phonemic awareness lessons, ensuring students receive systematic, research-backed instruction. Whether it’s introducing letters in a specific sequence or using multisensory techniques to reinforce sounds, LETRS equips educators with tools to deliver engaging lessons aligned with the science of reading.

Implementing LETRS in the classroom is most successful when there is a collaborative effort among teachers and school staff. LETRS encourages ongoing professional development, and many educators find that working together to share best practices strengthens their implementation. Schools that prioritize professional learning communities and offer LETRS coaching programs see the most success in creating a unified approach to literacy instruction.

To complement LETRS training, having the right books in the classroom is essential. Booksource has curated a complete collection (K-2) that consists of 27 subsets (5-15 titles per subset) and this collection aligns to the LETRS Scope & Sequence. Also, you're able to purchase the subsets, individually.  This collection focuses on helping students build their understanding of letters and sounds through engaging, decodable texts. By integrating these books into classroom libraries or guided reading sessions, teachers can reinforce the phonics lessons they’ve learned through LETRS training, ensuring students receive systematic literacy instruction.

Enhance Literacy Development with

LETRS-Aligned Collections from Booksource

LETRS training provides educators with a solid foundation in the science of reading, equipping them to teach the essential skills of phonics and phonemic awareness. By focusing on how students learn letters and sounds, LETRS empowers teachers to deliver systematic instruction that addresses the diverse needs of their classrooms. Whether working with struggling readers or strengthening the skills of proficient students, educators who complete LETRS training and implement the program in their classrooms are better prepared to foster long-term literacy success.

For teachers, LETRS represents more than just another professional development program—it’s a research-backed approach that transforms how reading is taught. By using strategies that align with the science of reading and incorporating high-quality resources like the phonics collections from Booksource, you can ensure your students are mastering the building blocks of reading.

Booksource offers specially curated phonics book collections that align with LETRS training. These collections include decodable books and read alouds designed to reinforce the letters, sounds, and phonics skills students are learning. By using these resources, you can provide your students with authentic practice that supports their literacy development. To implement LETRS into your curriculum, explore our collections today.