Secondary students face seemingly insurmountable odds when endeavoring to learn to read, especially if the students have learning disabilities that impact reading. This study examines the effect on phonological-orthographic retention over the first two units, single letter consonants and vowels, of the Read to the Mountain phonics intervention program over eighteen sessions. Participants include nine secondary-grade students, five boys and four girls. The intervention program embeds synthetic phonics, historical linguistics, incremental rehearsal, phonics games, evidence-based, high-leverage practices, and common special education accommodations. The study utilized descriptive quantitative analysis with pre-post testing via the Quick Phonics Screener, full flashcard deck, and the reading confidence survey. Daily progress monitoring is through incremental rehearsal. The net effect for phonics retention for the participants using the Read to the Mountain phonics intervention is statistically significant increases across the data matrix among all four methods of phonemic awareness probes.