Every year, I find myself refining my go-to materials for reading intervention, and 2025 is no different. In this post, I’m sharing the best literacy resources of 2025: the tools, books, and materials I truly can’t teach without. From UFLI Foundations supplies and Wilson Reading System–aligned homework to Lively Letters, phonics games, erasable gel pens, and even the visual timer that keeps my sessions running smoothly, these are the items that make my structured literacy instruction easier and more effective. Some links are affiliate or TPT links, but this list is built entirely around what I use and love as a dyslexia interventionist.
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UFLI Foundations and My Go-To Word-Building Tools
If you’ve been following the science of reading trends, you’ve probably heard of UFLI Foundations, and for good reason. The manual has become one of my favorite additions to my structured literacy lessons this year, particularly for younger students (or older students who are not significantly below peer expectations). I love how clear and systematic it is, and the online UFLI Foundations Toolbox offers an incredible collection of free literacy resources to support each lesson.
While I’ve heard some folks say the manual is expensive at around $80, it’s important to consider that there are very few other items you’ll need to purchase in order to implement the program. You’ll definitely need access to a printer or copier, but you’ll be printing free materials from the online toolbox. The manual is a smart investment in your students’ success.
An indispensable part of my UFLI lessons is word work with magnetic letters on dollar store cookie trays. These simple tools make it easy for students to practice phoneme-grapheme mapping, sound segmentation, and blending. It’s nothing fancy, but it works beautifully, and that’s exactly what makes it one of the best literacy resources of 2025 in my teaching toolkit.
I currently have five clients working their way through UFLI Foundations. I love this program for many reasons: it’s affordable, it’s easy to follow, it’s effective, and it’s so easy to grab lesson supplements online in the toolbox.
Wilson Reading System Tools and Tutoring Essentials
For older students and students with more significant needs, the Wilson Reading System is my preferred program. While my Wilson certification and the program’s materials are essential to my success as a private tutor, today I’m sharing some of the “extras” that make my life easier.
First, Wilson-aligned homework has proven to be invaluable since I transitioned to working with homeschool families. Families want to support their children’s progress, and they are looking for ways to reinforce current concepts on days when we are not meeting for a tutoring session. Having Wilson-aligned homework in PDF form means that I can assign homework easily.
I teach in different locations throughout the week, so figuring out how to travel with my tutoring materials was a top priority this year. These photo storage boxes are one of my favorite purchases. Each student has a box with their phonetically regular word cards and high frequency word cards. This helps me keep each student’s materials neatly organized and easy to access.
Speaking of word cards, as my client list grew, I began running out of both phonetically regular word cards and high frequency word cards. I purchased an additional set of phonetically regular word cards on eBay, and now I have a sufficient number of cards for the seven students I have moving through the Wilson Reading System. These drawer organizers (pictured below) are the perfect size to organize my extra cards.
While I can’t link to any specific products on eBay because stock is always changing, this is your reminder to check second-hand sites when you need additional supplies! I’ve purchased many extra sets of Wilson materials on eBay, including student readers, magnet boards, and phonetically regular word cards. It’s an affordable and Earth-friendly way to stock up on the supplies you need.
My final can’t-teach-without-it item for Wilson instruction is Frixion erasable gel pens. They write smoothly, come in a variety of colors, and erase cleanly. Most importantly, they motivate my hesitant writers to complete their dictation pages!
Want to see more of the materials and storage solutions I use as a traveling reading teacher? Read The Ultimate Packing List for Traveling Reading Teachers.
Lively Letters: Phonics and Letter-Sound Mastery for All Ages
I use Lively Letters cards to teach all letters and sounds to my youngest learners. I also use them to support older students who need extra practice with tricky phonemes. Lively Letters teaches phonemic awareness, phonics, and speech production at the same time.
Instead of using keywords (like b-bat-/b/), Lively Letters teaches cues to elicit the letter’s sound without a keyword. Why does this matter?
Have you ever had a pre-reader who could repeat the letter-keyword-sound for letters, but didn’t quite understand why they were saying it? Even though they can repeat b-bat-/b/, they didn’t realize that b represents the sound /b/. Lively Letters will help to solve that problem!
With older students, I often see b/d reversals, as well as difficulty differentiating between short e and short i, voiced and unvoiced sounds like /s/ and /z/, and similar but commonly confused sounds like /f/ and /th/. Lively Letters cues will help older students clear up these lingering issues. Lively Letters can be your entire curriculum, or just a supplement, but it will result in progress!
While I own a variety of Lively Letters resources from Reading with TLC, the instruction manual and the “basic size letter cards” are my most-used items.
Phonics Games and Small Rewards to Boost Engagement
My younger students love to finish a tutoring session with a card game from Got It! Learning. The most appealing feature of these games is that they include directions for both reading and spelling options. It’s so easy to find games focused on reading, but it’s much harder to find games for spelling! I own the Set 1 card deck, which includes CVC words (including words with bonus letters), as well as directions for playing five different games with the same deck.
I also keep a stash of my own card games handy for special occasions. When my students complete a tough progress monitoring assessment, I find time for a card game to give their brains a rest! I keep the decks in storage containers by skill so I can quickly and easily find what I need, whether it’s a review of CVC words with suffixes -s and -es, sentence reading fluency with blends, or reading common Latin bases.
No matter what age they are, nearly all of my students are fans of scented stickers! It’s a simple and affordable way to offer a little positive reinforcement at the end of a lesson.
Extra Tools That Deserve an Honorable Mention
Words by Christoph Niemann is an essential resource for anyone who works with English Learners or students with oral language deficits. Here’s why: Part of the orthographic mapping process involves making a connection to the word’s meaning. However, it can be really challenging to discuss the definition of a word that you can’t see or illustrate!
Let’s say you want to teach the spelling of the word of. How do you explain the meaning of the word of and how to use it in a sentence? This is where the book Words comes in. Each page illustrates one of the Fry words in a funny or unique way. When I show my students an image, their hands shoot up because everyone wants a turn to use the word in a sentence!
Lastly, each and every lesson begins with setting a visual timer and ends when it beeps. I initially used this timer to help students conceptualize how much time we had left in our lessons. I quickly realized that it’s helpful for me to have this visual representation of time, too! I like my timer so much that I even bring it home to help my middle schooler budget his time after school. Students who struggle with knowing what can reasonably be accomplished in a set amount of time, as well as students who need their time structured to remain focused, will benefit from a visual timer.
All My Go-To Literacy Resources at a Glance
That’s a wrap! Here’s a quick look at my favorite literacy resources for 2025:
- My UFLI manual, the free UFLI Foundations Toolbox, and magnetic letters on cookie trays
- Wilson-aligned homework assignments, colorful storage containers, and erasable gel pens
- The Lively Letters manual and letter cards
- Phonics games and scented stickers for motivation
- Other helpful tools: a high frequency word book and a visual timer
Thanks for taking a peek inside the tools and materials that make my lessons run smoothly! Whether you’re looking for fresh ideas, new resources to try, or simple ways to streamline your sessions, I hope this list helps you feel supported as you plan for the year ahead. If you have a favorite tool I should try, I’d love to hear about it!
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