Phonics

Hello! I know phonics aren’t everything, but my students cannot spell to save their lives. I work at a middle school and the spelling issue is getting out of hand. Does anyone have advice for teaching how to write English words? Researching the rules, remembering how I was taught, etc. but for example.

I want to start with long vs short vowels. No biggie.

But then as soon as we dip into Digraphs the rules seem to dissolve. There are so many constant combinations. I think teaching “Play” and “Star” to introduce them to simple digraphs makes sense… but then suddenly I’m faced with “Hungry” “thirsty” which have a blend of three consonants together. I know it looks like nonsense to my students so how can i teach them how to spell!??