Information for Parents about how
phonics will help your child to read
and spell.
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What is Phonics?
Phonics is a method of teaching children how to read and
spell.
Phonemes
Words are made up of small units of sound called
phonemes. Spoken English contains 44 different
phonemes. Through phonics lessons children learn to
listen carefully and identify the phonemes that make up
each word.
Graphemes
Children are taught how to write down the phonemes –
these are called graphemes. Phonemes can be
represented by a single letter or a group of letters. In
the English language there are 120 graphemes that can
be formed using the 26 letters of the alphabet. Some
graphemes are formed using more than one letter:
e.g: ch/ oo/ (these are digraphs – graphemes with 2
letters)
igh/air/ (these are trigraphs – graphemes with 3 letters)
There are even some graphemes that are made up of 4
letters e.g. ough as in through.
Blending
Blending is a vital skill in learning to read. Children are
taught to say the sounds in a word and then blend them
together so they can hear themselves say the word,
e.g. c/ a/ t / = cat.
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Segmenting
Segmenting is a vital skill in learning to spell and is the
opposite of blending. Children are taught to break up a
word into the phonemes that make it up.
Here at St Hugh’s, like in many other schools, we use the
“Letters and Sounds” scheme to teach phonics. There are
six phases in which the children are taught phonics in an
organised, systematic and structured way. Phonics
lessons last for about 15 – 20 minutes every day and are
great fun for the children!
Not all children progress at the same rate. Some children
may need to revisit some aspects, which is why we ensure
that each lesson begins with revision of previously learnt
skills.
Phase 1
Phase One of Letters and Sounds is taught in Nursery
and concentrates on developing children's speaking and
listening skills and lays the foundations for the phonics
work which starts in Phase 2. The emphasis during Phase
1 is to get children tuned in to different sounds. For
example environmental sounds, like the washing machine
or kettle, musical instruments, rhymes, alliteration and
different voice sounds, so they are ready to begin
developing oral blending and segmenting skills.
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Phase 2
Phase 2 begins in Reception. Letters and their sounds are
introduced one at a time. They are taught in the following
sequence:
Set
Set
Set
Set
Set
1:
2:
3:
4:
5:
s, a, t, p
i, n, m, d
g, o, c, k
ck, e, u, r
h, b, f, ff, l, ll, ss
The children begin to learn to blend and segment to begin
reading and spelling. This begins with simple words using
the sounds taught such as sat, mud, pick, boss.
Alongside this children are introduced to tricky words.
These are the words that are irregular words. That
means that phonics cannot be applied to the reading and
spelling of these words.
The tricky words introduced in Phase 2 are:
to
the
no
go
I
Phase 3
By the time they reach Phase 3 in Reception, children will
already be able to blend and segment words containing
the 19 letters taught in Phase 2.
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The new letters and sounds in this phase are:
Set 6: j, v, w, x
Set 7: y, z, zz, qu
Digraphs: ch, sh, th, ng, ai, ee, oa, oo, ar, or, ur, ow, oi, er
Trigraphs: igh, ear, air, ure
Tricky words:
he
my
she
you
we
her
me
they
be
all
was
are
Phase 4
This phase, which is taught in Year 1, consolidates all that
the children have learnt in the previous phases but the
focus is on words with more complicated structures, for
example words which contain adjacent consonants: trust,
spring, bench.
Tricky words:
said
were
out
so
there
what
have
little
like
one
some
do
come
when
By this point children would be expected to be reading
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CVC words at speed along with the tricky words from the
previous phases. Children, at this stage, will only be
blending when a word is unfamiliar.
Phase 5
Phase 5 begins in Year 1 but the children keep revisiting
Phases 2, 3 and 4. This continues throughout the year and
into Year 2.
Phase 5 graphemes for reading:
ay tray
ou house
ie tie
ea seal
oy
ir
ue
aw
ey
boy
bird
blue
saw
key
wh wheel
ph phone
ew new
oe toe
au sauce
a-e
e-e
i-e
o-e
u-e
cake
these
like
home
rule
Tricky words:
oh
called
water
work
any
their
asked
where
mouse
eyes
people
would
who
many
friends
Mr
could
again
laughed
once
Mrs
should
thought
because
please
looked
through
different
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By this phase children should be reading words fluently
and no longer be blending and segmenting familiar words.
They will be automatically decoding a large number of
words for reading by this point.
The real focus throughout the phase is to not only learn
the new graphemes for reading but also to learn to read
words with alternative pronunciations, e.g: ‘g’ as in gate
and ‘g’ as in giant; ‘ow’ as in cow and ‘ow as in snow.
Children also learn alternative
phoneme, e.g:
‘ay’ as in the word play
‘a-e’ as in the word spade
‘ea’ as in the word break
‘ey’ as in the word grey
‘eigh’ as in the word eight
‘a’ as in the word later
‘ei’ as in the word vein
spellings
for
each
Phase 6
By phase 6 in Year 2 children are reading longer and less
familiar texts independently and fluently. Comprehension
strategies continue to be developed so that children
clarify meaning, ask and answer questions about the texts
they are reading, construct mental images during reading
and summarise what they have read.
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In spelling children practise writing past tenses, adding
suffixes, understanding plurals and how to spell longer
words.
Throughout Phases 5 and 6 children are encouraged to
develop strategies for learning spellings.
Syllables
Base Words
Analogy
Mnemonics
To learn a word by listening to how
many syllables there are so it can be
broken into smaller bits. (e.g. Sep-tember)
To learn a word by finding its base
word. (e.g. “jumping”- base word jump
+ing
To learn a word using a word that is
already learnt.
(e.g. could, would,
should)
To learn a word by making up a sentence
to help remember it. (e.g. because – big
elephants can always upset small
elephants
Useful websites for phonics practice at home that
cover all six phases:
http://www.letters-and-sounds.com/
http://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/
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