What is Phase 5 phonics? Phase 5 phonics is usually taught in Year 1 and marks a shift from learning new sounds to broadening phonics knowledge. Children explore alternative ways to spell familiar sounds, encounter new graphemes, and tackle more challenging words. This phase helps develop fluency, confidence and more accurate spelling — all vital …

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What is Phase 4 phonics? Phase 4 phonics is all about strengthening the skills children have developed so far — particularly blending and segmenting. No new graphemes are introduced at this stage. Instead, children learn to read and spell words with adjacent consonants, such as trap, frog, and clamp. These blends can be tricky to …

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What are the tricky words in Phase 3? As children move into Phase 3, they start to come across words that can’t be decoded using their current phonics knowledge — and that’s where tricky words come in. These are words that don’t follow the usual phonics rules or include sounds that haven’t been introduced yet. …

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What is Phase 3 phonics? Phase 3 phonics builds on the knowledge children gain in Phase 2. Once they’re confident with single-letter sounds and can blend simple CVC words, Phase 3 introduces them to more complex graphemes — including digraphs and trigraphs — so they can read and spell a wider range of words. It’s …

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Phase 1 sets the foundations for everything that comes next — and in my view, it’s the most important phase of phonics. Once children are confident with listening skills, sound discrimination and oral blending, they’re ready to move on to Phase 2. This is where they start learning specific letter–sound correspondences and begin reading and …

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If you’ve been teaching phonics for any length of time, you’ll know that not every word plays by the rules. That’s where tricky words come in. These are the words that can’t be sounded out, and children need to recognise them as whole words. In this post, we’re breaking down what tricky words are, how …

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If you’ve ever sat with a group of children trying to sound out words and felt like something just wasn’t clicking — sound buttons might be the missing piece. They’re a brilliant way to help children see the sounds in words, making segmenting and blending much easier. Whether you’re teaching phonics every day or supporting …

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