Walsham-le-Willows Primary

School

We follow the Letters and Sounds programme

from Reception until the end of Year 2.

Children in Key Stage 2 follow the Support for

Spelling programme.

Letters and Sounds is split into Phases 1 – 6.

Phase 1 is covered in pre-school. Children

begin Phase 2 in Early Years.

Phase 2 introduces one set of sounds a week

e.g. Week 1: s a t p

Week 2: i n m d

Week 3: g o c k

Each sound is called a phoneme. A phoneme is

one unit of sound.

For each phoneme we teach the children a

song from Jolly Phonics – here are examples.

Once the children have learned the letters in

the set, they begin blending.

Example in Week 1: tap, pat, sat

Each phoneme is a sound button, children

often draw sound buttons under the words.

Example: tap

Phase 3 Letters and Sounds is also covered in EYFS

and introduces children to digraphs and

trigraphs.

A digraph is two letters together which make one

sound e.g. sh, ai, ee.

A trigraph is three letters together which make

one sound e.g. igh, ear, air.

These digraphs and trigraphs also have Jolly

Phonics songs – here is an example.

Children also use sound buttons for digraphs and

trigraphs.

Example: ship

Our phonics lessons throughout EYFS and KS1

are split into Review, Teach, Practise and

Apply.

Review: e.g. flashcards, quickread, quickwrite

Teach: the objective for the lesson e.g. a new

sound

Practise: e.g. writing, game on Phonics Play

Apply: e.g. reading or writing

sentences/questions

At the start of Year 1, children are at the

Phase 3/4 stage.

Children are phonically assessed on Phase 2

phonemes, Phase 3 digraphs and trigraphs and

High Frequency Words at the start of and

throughout Year 1.

Children often spend time revisiting Phase 3

work in Phonics sessions at the beginning of

Year 1.

Phase 4 covers longer, but still decodable,

words which also contain Phase 3 digraphs and

trigraphs. We refer to these as CVCC, CCVC,

CCVCC, CCCVC and CCCVCC words!

Examples:

CVCC: tent, bend, wind, pond

CCVC: frog, trip, clap, plum

CCVCC: twist, plump, slept, grunt, shrink

CCCVC: street, spring

CCCVCC: strand

Phase 5 introduces alternate spellings for the

digraphs learned in Phase 3.

Examples:

Phase 3 Phase 5

ai ay, ey, a_e

pain, rain hay, they, make

igh ie, i_e

light, sigh pie, shine

ow ou

cow, town cloud, found

We start to try and show the children rules for

when to use the different sounds – if there are

any!

Example

oa: road, toad, loaf

oe: toe, doe

But it can sometimes get quite complicated!

Children also learn about split digraphs in Phase 5.

This is when words have an ‘e’ at the end, which then means we pronounce the previous vowel as

its letter name, not its sound.

Examples:

hat hate mad made

pin pine

not note

Nationally, children are expected to be at the

end of Phase 5 by the end of Year 1.

This is when they sit the recently introduced

Phonics Screening Test. Comprised of real and

rubbish words, it tests the children’s decoding,

sounding out and blending together.

The pass mark is 32 out of 40.

Words are made up of all sounds children have

learned from Phase 2 to Phase 5 and the test

gets progressively harder, ending with two-

syllable words e.g. portrait, starling.

Just like with Phase 3 however, children do

enter Year 2 not being fully secure on Phase 5,

so will often begin the year refreshing this

Phase.

Children then start Phase 6 in Year 2. This is

the last Phase in Letters and Sounds.

Phase 6

At the start of Phase Six of Letters and Sounds, children will have already learnt the most frequently occurring grapheme–phoneme correspondences (GPCs) in the English language. They will be able to read many familiar words automatically. When they come across unfamiliar words they will in many cases be able to decode them quickly, using their well-developed sounding and blending skills.

In Phase Six the main aim is for children to become more fluent readers and more accurate spellers.

The children are introduced to some more

vocabulary to help their understanding.

• Suffix - a letter or group of letters added to the end of a

word. e.g. –ing, -ed, -er, est, -ful, -ly, -s and –es

• Prefix- a letter or group of letters attached to the

beginning of a word that partly indicates its meaning.

e.g. –un, -dis, -mis, -anti and -micro

• Syllable- a unit of pronunciation having one vowel sound,

with or without surrounding consonants.

e.g. happy…….hap-py has two syllables

sensible…….sen-si-ble has three syllables

Compound word- when two words are joined to form a new word. e.g. newspaper

Irregular spellings of tricky words Spellings are given each week, based on assessment and incorrect spellings from their work

Apostrophes by omission- an apostrophe to show a missing letter (or letters) e.g. I am I’m She has She’s

Any questions?

We have prepared some resources for you

which you may find helpful when hearing your

child read.

Thank you for coming!