Phonics Phase Guide
We currently offer phonics lessons for KS1 in Reception, Year One and Year Two.
How do children learn to read and write in English? Primary school children in the UK build up an inventory of sounds, also known as phonemes, and spellings of these sounds, also known as graphemes.
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Below is a guide to children's typical step-by-step progression on their literacy journey.
Approx age: 4–5 | First term of Reception
Phase 2 introduces simple letter-sound correspondences. As each set of letters is introduced, children are encouraged to use their new knowledge to sound out and blend words. For example, they will learn to blend the sounds s–a–t to make the word "sat".
Approx. age: 5–6 | Year 1
Children will learn some new graphemes for reading. They will also be taught alternative pronunciations for known graphemes. For example, they have already learned "ow", as in "cow", and will now learn "ow", as in "blow".
In addition, they will learn alternative spellings for known phonemes. For example, the sound /aɪ/ has been learned as the grapheme igh as in "night", but can also be spelt "y", "ie", and "i-e".
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Approx. age: 6–7 | Year 2
In Phase 6 children will read with increasing fluency. They will have learned most of the common letter-sound correspondences and can read familiar words automatically without needing to sound out and blend.
Children will work on spelling, including prefixes and suffixes, doubling and dropping letters, and so on.