Phonics

At Red Rose Primary School, we use Letters and Sounds to teach phonics. This programme sets out a detailed and systematic programme for teaching phonics skills to children with the aim of them becoming fluent readers by the age of seven. It aims to build children’s speaking and listening skills in their own right as well as to prepare for learning to read by developing their phonic knowledge and skills.

Synthetic Phonics is the synthesizing, or blending of phonemes (sounds) to make a word, enabling children to read. Synthetic phonics is all the different ways each phoneme can be represented. Children are taught how to:

blend phonemes in a word to read
listen for phonemes in words to spell
Irregular, high frequency words
say the phoneme first and then the letter name

There are 6 overlapping phases. Below is a summary of the phases taught.

Phase	Phonics Knowledge and Skills
1	Activities are divided into seven aspects, including environmental sounds, instrumental sounds, body sounds, rhythm and rhyme, alliteration, voice sounds and finally oral blending and segmenting.
2	Learning 19 letters of the alphabet and one sound for each. Blending sounds together to make words. Segmenting words into their separate sounds. Beginning to read simple captions.
3	The remaining 7 letters of the alphabet, one sound for each. Graphemes such as ch, oo, th representing the remaining phonemes not covered by single letters. Reading captions, sentences and questions. On completion of this phase, children will have learnt the ‘simple code’ - i.e. one grapheme for each phoneme in the English language.
4	No new grapheme-phoneme correspondences are taught in this phase. Children learn to blend and segment longer words with adjacent consonants, e.g. swim, clap, jump.
5	Now we move on to the “complex code”. Children learn more graphemes for the phonemes which they already know, plus different ways of pronouncing phonemes they already know.
6	Working on spelling, including prefixes and suffixes, doubling and dropping letters etc.

Here are some more resources and details about each of the different phases.

Phonics – Stage 1

Phase 1 is the very start of your child's journey many children may have focused on Phase 1 within their nursery setting. It is all about listening to sounds and learning to discriminate between different sounds. The Phase focuses on sounds in everyday life rather than sounds in words. Phase 1 lays the essential foundations for all the learning that follows. If your child cannot identify individual sounds in the everyday world and differentiate between them e.g. a car horn and a boiling kettle, then they will struggle to begin hearing the separate sounds that make up words.

Letters are not introduced until Phase 2. If you have a child in Reception then you will find these activities particularly useful. If your child is a little older but struggles to hear the 'separate sounds in words' then you may also find it useful to return to some of these activities.

Resources

The best source of materials for Phase 1 is an external website. To visit this site, click on the link below:

Phase 1 Resources Link

More resources will be added soon.

Phonics – Phase 2

In Phase 2, children are taught 19 letters grouped into 5 sets. One set will generally be taught in one week.

Set 1 s / a / t / p

Set 2 i / n / m / d

Set 3 g / o / c / k

Set 4 ck / e / u / r

Set 5 h / b / f, ff / l, ll / ss

Children are encouraged to begin 'blending' sounds into words straight away. Therefore, having been taught only Set 1, children can make (and read) words like at, sat, pat & tap.

Nonsense words, such as 'tas' are also acceptable as they allow children to explore sounds freely. Mis-spelt words (which are phonetically correct) are also allowable e.g. pas. In time, children will be shown the correct spelling. Remember, the initial focus is on reading; blending separate sounds into words.

As children learn all the Sets in Phase 2, they will be able to read an increasing number of words. The 'Reading Word List', in the resources section, sets out the range of words which can be read once each additional Set has been taught.

You will notice that 'double consonants' (ff / ss / ll) are taught early. This illustrates to children that sometimes more than one letter can represent a single sound. In the case of these letters it is the same sound as the single letter represents. In Phase 3 children are taught that this is not always the case.The grapheme 'ck' is taught in Phase 2 as it features in many of the early words that children learn e.g. back, neck and sack.

Within Phase 2 the children are also introduced to ‘tricky’ words which are words that are not fully decodable.

Tricky words taught in Phase 2.

the

to

no

go

I

Phase 2 Resources

The following resources will help you support your child as they progress through Phase 2.

Grapheme Flash Cards

An A5 flash card for each 'grapheme' taught in Phase 2
Phase 2 grapheme cards

Reading Word Lists

Groups of words which can be read once each new Set is taught
phase 2 reading word list

Tricky Word Flash Cards

A5 flash cards for each tricky word taught in this Phase

More resources will be added soon.

Phonics – Phase 3

In this Phase, a further 25 letters and graphemes are taught. The final two sets of letters are taught first.

Set 6 j / v / w / x

Set 7 y / z, zz / qu

Once Sets 6 & 7 have been taught children learn about graphemes where more than one letter represents one sound e.g. the grapheme 'ai' represents one sound in the word 'rain'.

Consonant digraphs ch

(as in chip)
sh

(as in shop)
th*

(as in thin)
th*

(as in then)
ng

(as in ring)

Vowel

digraphs
ai

(as in rain)
ee

(as in feet)
igh

(as in night)
oo**

(as in shook)
oo**

(as in boot)

ar

(as in farm)
or

(as in fork)
ur

(as in hurt)
ow

(as in cow)
oi

(as in coin)

ear

(as in dear)
air

(as in fair)
ure

(as in sure)
er

(as in her)

Tricky words taught in Phase 3.

he she

we me

be was

you they

all are

my her

Phase 3 Resources

The following resources will help you support your child as they progress through Phase 3.

Grapheme Flashcards Phase 3

An A5 flash card for each 'grapheme' taught in Phase 3

phase 3 grapheme cards for website

Reading Word Lists

Groups of words which can be read once each new Set is taught

phase 3 reading word list

Tricky Word Flashcards

A5 flashcards for each tricky word taught in this Phase 3

Captions & Sentences

Resources for your child to read

Phase 3 captions and sentences

More resources will be added soon.

Phonics – Phase 4

In Phase 4 children are not taught any new phonemes or graphemes. Instead, they are taught to further manipulate the phonemes and graphemes they have already learnt. Many of the words children explored in Phase 2 and 3 were monosyllabic (words of one syllable). In Phase 4 children explore more polysyllabic words (words containing more than one syllable). Many of the words in Phase 2 and 3 required children to blend approximately three sounds together in order to read them. Phase 4 requires children to blend an increasing number of sounds together in order to read.

In Phase 4 words are often referred to in relation to how many vowels and consonants they contain.

CVC words The word 'cod' is a CVC word (consonant / vowel / consonant).

Other CVC words include: sad, net & him.

CCVC words The word 'crab' is a CCVC word (consonant / consonant / vowel / consonant). Other CCVC words include: trim, flat & step.

CVCC words The word 'help' is a CVCC word (consonant / vowel / consonant / consonant). Other CVCC words include: fist, mend and test.

As children progress through Phase 4 they become more confident and skilled in reading and spelling words with a greater number of letters and graphemes.

Tricky words taught in Phase 4.

said have

like so

do some

come were

there little

one when

out what

Phase 4 Resources

The following resources will help you support your child as they progress through Phase 4.

Reading Word Lists

Groups of words which can be read in Phase 4

Phase 4 word list

Tricky Word Flash Cards

A5 flashcards for each tricky word taught in Phase 4

Sentences for Reading

A selection of sentences to read

Phase 4 sentences

More resources will be added soon.

Phonics – Phase 5

In Phase 5 children are introduced to new graphemes for reading. Some of these graphemes represent phonemes (sounds) that they have already learnt a grapheme for. For example, in Phase 3 children were taught 'ai' as the grapheme for the phoneme /a/ (as in rain). In Phase 5, children are taught that the phoneme /a/ can also be represented by the graphemes 'ay' (as in play) or 'a-e' (as in make). This variation needs to be taught as it is common in our language system.

a-e

(as in came)
au

(as in Paul)
aw

(as in saw)
ay

(as in day)

e-e

(as in these)
ea

(as in sea)
ew

(as in stew)
ew

(as in chew)

ey

(as in money)
i-e

(as in like)
ir

(as in girl)
o-e

(as in bone)

oe

(as in toe)
ou

(as in out)
oy

(as in boy)
ph

(as in Phil)

u-e

(as in June)
u-e

(as in huge)
ue

(as in clue)
wh

(as in when)

Tricky words taught in Phase 5.

oh their

people Mr

Mrs looked

called asked

could

Phase 5 Resources

The following resources will help you support your child as they progress through Phase 5.

Reading Word Lists

Groups of words which can be read in Phase 5

Phase 5 word list

Tricky Word Flash Cards

A5 flashcards for each tricky word taught in Phase 5

More resources will be added soon.

Phonics – Phase 6

At the start of Phase Six of Letters and Sounds, children will have already learnt the most frequently occurring grapheme–phoneme correspondences in the English language. They will be able to read many familiar words automatically. When they come across unfamiliar words they will in many cases be able to decode them quickly and quietly using their well-developed sounding and blending skills. With more complex unfamiliar words they will often be able to decode them by sounding them out.

At this stage children should be able to spell words phonemically although not always correctly. In Phase Six the main aim is for children to become more fluent readers and more accurate spellers.

Phase 6 Resources

Resources will be added soon.

Useful Links and Documents

Y1 and Y2 Common Exception Words

First 100 High Frequency Words

Next 200 High Frequency Words

Phonics Play – Phonics Resources and Games

Teach Your Monster To Read – Online Phonics / Reading Journey