Phonics
At St Wilfrid’s we teach children to read and spell during daily phonics lessons using the program ‘Letters and Sounds’. The sounds are taught in an order that allows children to start reading whole words as soon as possible.
During phonics lesson the children learn:
- A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a word.
- A grapheme is the letter or letters that represent the phoneme.
- How to blend (synthesise) these sounds together to make words.
- How to segment a word and apply their phonetical knowledge when spelling.
Click on the links below to watch Miss Parr's videos of the different phonemes in each phase and how they are pronounced.
Phase 2 - https://youtu.be/2W2B9TnnSlo
Phase 3 - https://youtu.be/R_hgRGnUSVw
Phase 5 - https://youtu.be/vR0YvFQlF_k
The ‘Letters and Sounds’ program is split into 6 phases. Each phase has a list of ‘tricky words’. These words are exceptions to the rules so the children have to be able to sight read them.
Phase 1 |
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Phase 2 |
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Phase 3 |
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Phase 4 |
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Phase 5 |
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Phase 6 |
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By the end of reception, we would expect the children to have a secure understanding of all sounds up to and including phase 3.
By the end of Year 1, we would expect children to have a secure understanding of all sounds up to and including phase 5.
By the end of Year 2, we would expect children to have a secure knowledge of the sounds in all phase and be able to apply their knowledge effectively in their reading and their writing.
Each phonics lesson follows the same four-step format:
- Revisit and review- This allows the children to go over previous learning.
- Teach- The children learn a new sound or spelling rule.
- Practise- This gives the children the opportunity to write words with the sound or spelling rule in.
- Apply- This is when the children apply their learning by writing sentences.
Click on the link below to see Miss Parr delivering a Year 1 phonics lesson, this should help with the understanding of the 4 step format.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjydCy5ZUV0
We would expect the children to be able to spell many/most common exception words for their year group. These are listed below.
Year 1 common exception words
the |
of |
his |
go |
our |
push |
a |
says |
has |
school |
once |
pull |
to |
are |
I |
where |
ask |
full |
today |
is |
no |
love |
friend |
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Year 2 common exception words
door |
wild |
every |
father |
improve |
many |
floor |
climb |
great |
class |
sure |
clothes |
poor |
most |
break |
grass |
sugar |
busy |
because |
only |
steak |
pass |
eye |
people |
find |
both |
pretty |
plant |
even |
water |
mind |
old |
beautiful |
bath |
should |
again |
kind |
cold |
after |
path |
would |
half |
behind |
gold |
fast |
hour |
who |
money |
child |
hold |
last |
move |
whole |
parents |
children |
told |
past |
prove |
any |
Christmas |
everybody |
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