“To learn to read is to light a fire” Victor Hugo
…and lighting that fire is what we want to do in Oppie and Topper Class!
What Is Phonics?
Phonics teaches children to read and write by understanding the relationship between sounds (phonemes) and letters or groups of letters (graphemes). By learning to blend sounds to read and segment words to spell, children develop the foundations for fluent reading and confident writing.
Phase 1
Phase 1 focuses primarily on developing children’s listening skills to support early reading and writing.
Before children can blend sounds together to read words or segment words to spell them, they need to be able to hear and identify different sounds around them. In this phase, children learn to:
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Listen carefully to environmental sounds
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Recognise and explore rhythms in songs and nursery rhymes
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Identify and match similar sounds
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Develop their ability to distinguish between different sounds
These early listening and sound discrimination skills provide the essential foundation for later phonics learning, including blending and segmenting.
Phase 2
In Phase 2, children are introduced to their first set of letters and sounds. Each sound is taught in a very pure way — for example, the letter s is pronounced “ssssss” rather than “suh.”
The letters are introduced in a carefully planned order so that children can begin reading simple words by the end of the first week. This helps them quickly experience the excitement and confidence that comes with being able to read independently.
During this phase, children learn to:
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Blend sounds together to read words (e.g., s-a-t → sat).
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Segment words into individual sounds to support spelling and writing (e.g., dog → d-o-g).
Both blending and segmenting are essential early reading and writing skills, and Phase 2 builds the foundation for future phonics learning
Alongside the introduction of letters and sounds, we also systematically teach “tricky words.” These are words that cannot be decoded using regular phonics rules because they contain unusual or less common sound patterns.
Examples of tricky words include no, the and he.
When teaching these words, we help children to identify the part that is “tricky” — the letter or letters that are not making their usual sound. By drawing attention to this, children learn to recognise and remember these words more easily.
Teaching tricky words alongside phonics ensures children can read a wider range of texts with increasing confidence and fluency
When children are confident recognising and blending their Phase 2 graphemes, they are introduced to the school reading scheme which is phonetically decodable and systematically runs alongside the “Pearson Bug Club” phonics scheme taught in school. Children are given books to read at home which are then changed when read.
Phase 4
Phase 4 focuses on helping children read longer words that contain adjacent consonants, also known as blends.
In these words, the consonants do not combine to make a new sound. Instead, children need to blend the individual sounds together to read the word and segment the sounds to spell it.
Examples of words in this phase include help, just, flight, and struck.
Phase 4 also introduces longer polysyllabic words — words with more than one syllable — helping children become confident in reading and writing more complex words.
Phase 5
Phase 5 focuses on alternative spellings for sounds children already know. For example, the long ai sound can be written in different ways: ay, a-e, eigh, ei, and ey.
In this phase, children learn to:
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Recognise the different graphemes for the same sound
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Decide which grapheme to use in reading and writing
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Apply these spellings confidently in their writing
Phase 5 is taught predominantly in Year 1, and the knowledge gained is reinforced and used as support throughout the rest of the primary years.
All Year 1 children complete the statutory Phonics Screening Check in the summer term. Children who do not pass the check continue to receive support and re-take it in Year 2 to ensure they have a secure foundation in phonics.
Phonic Screening Check
Please read the following for information on the Phonics Screener Check