Beginning Primary School

Teaching your child to read

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.

Set 1:
s, a, t, p

at, a, sat, pat, tap, sap, as

Set 2:
i – it, is, sit, pit, tip
n – an, in, nip, pan, nap
m – am, man, mat, map, Tim
d – dad, and, sad, dim, Sid

Set 3:
g – tag, gag, sag, gas, pig
o – got, on, not, top, dog
c – can, cot, cop, cap, cod
k – kid, kit, Kim, Ken

Set 4:
ck – kick, sack, dock, sick, pocket
e – get, pet, ten, net, pen
u – up, mum, run, mug, cup
r – rip, ram, rat, rocket, carrot

Set 5:
h – had, him, his, hot, hut
b – but, big, back, bed, bus
f, ff – of, if, off, fit, fog, puff
l, ll – let, leg, lot, bell, doll
ss – less, hiss, mass, mess, boss

Phase 2 tricky words:
the, to, no, go, I, into

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Examples of the Phase 2 phonics programme

Phase 2 Phonics Letters and Sounds aim to develop the following skills:

Knowledge and understanding of at least 19 letters
Practising letter recognition for reading and recall for spelling
Practising oral blending and segmentation
Practising blending for reading VC and CVC words
VC and CVC words for spelling
Practising high-frequency common words
Exposure to two-syllable words for reading

The 19 letters mentioned above are to be taught in 5 sets, with a set being taught each week. The sets are as follows:

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

Phase 2 Phonics Educational Video

Building Sentences

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Phase 3

In Phase 3, children build on the letter-sound correspondences learned in Phase 2. They learn consonant digraphs (sounds made up of two letters together such as ‘ch’ or ‘ll’) and long vowel sounds (such as ‘igh’ or ‘ai’).

Set 6:
j – jet, jam, jog, Jan
v – van, vet, velvet
w – wig, will, web
x – fox, box, six

Set 7:
y – yes, yet, yell
z – zip, zig-zag
zz – buzz, jazz
qu – quit, quick, liquid

Consonant digraphs:
ch – chip, chat, rich
sh – shop, shed, fish
th – thin, moth, that
ng – ring, thing, song

Vowel digraphs and trigraphs:
ai – rain, tail, aim
ee – bee, leek, see
igh – high, sigh, might
oa – boat, toad, foal
oo (long)– boot, food, moon
oo (short)– book, wood, foot
ar – park, art, car
or – for, torn, fork
ur – hurt, fur, surf
ow – cow, owl, town
oi – coin, boil, oil
ear – dear, shear, year
air – fair, pair, hair
ure – sure, pure, manure
er – dinner, summer, letter

Phase 3 tricky words:
he, she, we, me, be, was, you, they, all, are, my, her

Examples of the Phase 3 phonics programme

Phase 3 Letters and Sounds activities are broken into broad groups:

Teaching Letter Names
Introducing and Teaching Two-Letter and Three-Letter GPCs (- the relationship. between sounds and the letters which represent those sounds; also. known as 'letter-sound correspondences'). For example “sh” is a phoneme sound, but it's made up of two letters, meaning it's also a grapheme due to the breaking down of that sound into letters. More examples are: 1 letter - p, c, k. 2 letters - sh, oi, ow, ah.
Practising Grapheme Recognition for Reading and Spelling
Practising Blending for Reading
Practising Segmentation for Spelling
Teaching and Practising High Frequency Words
Teaching, Reading and Spelling Two-Syllable Words
Practising Reading and Writing Captions and Sentences

The letters learned in sets 6 and 7 are as follows:

Set 6 Set 7

j y

v z

w zz

x qu

The graphemes encountered are shown below:

Grapheme Example

ch chop

ar arm

sh ship

or for

th thick/there

ur hurt

ng sing

ow now

ai rain

oi coin

ee sheep

ear near

igh fight

air hair

oa boat

ure pure

oo look

er digger

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ai Sound game

Phase 4

Children will consolidate their knowledge during this phase and they will learn to read and spell words which have adjacent consonants (for example, trap, strong, milk and crept).

Children will also learn about consonant clusters: two consonants located together in a word, such tr, cr, st, lk, pl.

A consonant cluster is when two consonants are positioned together. They can appear at the start of a word, for example:

st in stay
fr in friend
cr in croak

Or at the end of a word:

sk in task
st in fast
nt in went
nd in sound

This is not to be confused with a consonant digraph, where the two letters make one sound. In a consonant cluster, you can hear the two sounds as you say the consonants.

Listen to this story