RECEPTION PHONICS 

OVERVIEW OF LETTERS AND SOUNDS

Below is a chart showing the order that children will be taught in.

Phase 1

• Listening to and for sounds
• Rhythm and rhyme
• Alliteration

Phase 2

• Sounds taught: s, a, t, p, i, n, m, d, g, o, c, k , ck, e, u, r, h, b, f, ff, l, ll, ss
• Tricky words: the, to, go, no

Phase 3

• Sounds taught: j, v, w, x, y, z, zz, qu, ch, sh, th, ng, ai, ee, igh, oa, oo, ar, or, ur, ow, oi, ear, air, ure, er
• Tricky words: no, go, I, the, to, he, she, we, me, be, was, my, you, they, her, all, are

Phase 4

• Recap all previous sounds
• Teach reading and spelling tricky words: said, so, he, we, me, be, have, like, some, come, was, you, were, little, one, they, all, are, do, when, out, what, my, her
• Read and write the words with their initial and/or final blends: st, nd, mp, nt, nk, ft, sk, lt, lp, tr, dr, gr, cr, br, fr, bl, fl, gl, pl, cl, sl, sp, st, tw, sm, nch, shr, str, thr

Phase 5

• Learn new phonome zh
• Teach new graphemes for reading ay, ou, ie, ea, oy, ir, ue, aw, wh, ph, ew, oe, au, a-e, e-e, i-e, o-e, u-e
• Teach reading tricky words oh, their, people, Mr, Mrs, looked, called, asked, water, where, who, again, thought, through , work, mouse, many, laughed, because, different, any, eyes, friends, once, please.
• Teach spelling words said, so have, like, some, were, there, oh, their, people Mr, Mrs, looked, called, asked.
• Teach alternative spellings for ch, j, m, n, r, s, z, u, i, ear, ar, air, or, ur, oo, ai, ee, igh, oa, y/oo, oo, sh

Phase 6

• Understand and supply suffixes—ed, ing, ful, est, er, ment, ness, en, s, es
• Understand the rules of adding ing, ed, er, est, ful, ly, y
• Investigate how adding suffixes and prefixes changes words
• Introduce the past tense

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Glossary

Phoneme - The smallest unit of speech-sounds which make up a word.

Grapheme - The written representation of sounds

Tricky word - Word which can’t be sounded out

Key words - High frequency words

VC Word - Vowel consonant word (it, as)

CVC Word - Word made up of a consonant, vowel, consonant (cat, dog)

Initial sound - First sound in a word