Phonics learning to read

Phonics teaching step-by-step | TheSchoolRun

Sort your phonemes from your graphemes, decoding from encoding and digraphs from trigraphs with our parents' guide to phonics teaching. Our step-by-step explanation takes you through the different stages of phonics learning, what your child will be expected to learn and the vocabulary you need to know.

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What is phonics?

Phonics is a method of teaching children to read by linking sounds (phonemes) and the symbols that represent them (graphemes, or letter groups). Phonics is the learning-to-read method used in primary schools in the UK today.

What is a phoneme?

A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound. The phonemes used when speaking English are:

Print out a list of phonemes to practise with your child or listen to the individual sounds being spoken with our phonics worksheets.

Phonics learning step 1: decoding

Children are taught letter sounds in Reception. This involves thinking about what sound a word starts with, saying the sound out loud and then recognising how that sound is represented by a letter.

The aim is for children to be able to see a letter and then say the sound it represents out loud. This is called decoding.

Some phonics programmes start children off by learning the letters s, a, t, n, i, p first. This is because once they know each of those letter sounds, they can then be arranged into a variety of different words (for example: sat, tip, pin, nip, tan, tin, sip, etc.). While children are learning to say the sounds of letters out loud, they will also begin to learn to write these letters (encoding).

They will be taught where they need to start with each letter and how the letters need to be formed in relation to each other. Letters (or groups of letters) that represent phonemes are called graphemes.

Phonics learning step 2: blending

Children then need to go from saying the individual sounds of each letter, to being able to blend the sounds and say the whole word. This can be a big step for many children and takes time.

Phonics learning step 3: decoding CVC words

Children will focus on decoding (reading) three-letter words arranged consonant, vowel, consonant (CVC words) for some time.

They will learn other letter sounds, such as the consonants g, b, d, h and the remaining vowels e, o, u. Often, they will be given letter cards to put together to make CVC words which they will be asked to say out loud.

Phonics learning step 4: decoding consonant clusters in CCVC and CVCC words

Children will also learn about consonant clusters: two consonants located together in a word, such tr, cr, st, lk, pl. Children will learn to read a range of CCVC words (consonant, consonant, vowel, consonant) such as trap, stop, plan.

They will also read a range of CVCC words (consonant, vowel, consonant, consonant) such as milk, fast, cart.

Phonics learning step 5: vowel digraphs

Children are then introduced to vowel digraphs. A digraph is two vowels that together make one sound such as: /oa/, /oo/, /ee/, /ai/. They will move onto sounding out words such as deer, hair, boat, etc. and will be taught about split digraphs (or 'magic e').

They will also start to read words combining vowel digraphs with consonant clusters, such as: train, groan and stool.

Phonics learning step 6: consonant digraphs

Children will also learn the consonant digraphs (two consonants that together make one sound) ch and sh and start blending these with other sounds to make words, such as: chat, shop, chain and shout.

Encoding, or learning to spell as well as read

Alongside this process of learning to decode (read) words, children will need to continue to practise forming letters which then needs to move onto encoding. Encoding is the process of writing down a spoken word, otherwise known as spelling.

They should start to be able to produce their own short pieces of writing, spelling the simple words correctly.

It goes without saying that reading a range of age-appropriate texts as often as possible will really support children in their grasp of all the reading and spelling of all the phonemes.

Phonics learning in KS1

By the end of Reception, children should be able to write one grapheme for each of the 44 phonemes.

In Year 1, they will start to explore vowel digraphs and trigraphs (a group of three letters that makes a single sound, like 'igh' as in 'sigh') further.

They will begin to understand, for example, that the letters ea can make different sounds in different words (dream and bread). They will also learn that one sound might be represented by different groups of letters: for example, light and pie (igh and ie make the same sound).

Children in Year 2 will be learning spelling rules, such as adding suffixes to words (such as -ed, -ing, -er, -est, -ful, -ly, -y, -s, -es, -ment and -ness). They will be taught rules on how to change root words when adding these suffixes (for example, removing the 'e' from 'have' before adding 'ing') and then move onto harder concepts, such as silent letters (knock, write, etc) and particular endings (le in bottle and il in fossil).

Free phonics worksheets and information for parents

For more information about the phonics system look through our phonics articles, including ways to boost phonics confidence, details of the Year 1 Phonics Screening Check, parents' phonics questions answered and more.

We also have a large selection of free phonics worksheets to download for your child.

Phonics - Oxford Owl for Home

If you have a child at school, you’ll probably have heard of phonics! Phonics (sometimes called synthetic phonics) is the system almost all schools use to teach children to read.

Phonics teaches children the link between letters and the sounds they represent. It has its own vocabulary which can make it sound more complicated than it really is.

Frequently Asked Questions about Phonics

How is phonics taught?

First, your child will be taught the most straightforward letters and the sounds they make. For example, they will be taught that the letter ‘m’ represents an mmm sound and the letters ‘oa’ represent an oh sound.
- In phonics we use the word grapheme to talk about the letters on the page and phoneme to talk about the sounds those letters represent.
Next, they will learn how sounds can be put together (blended) to make words. For example, they will learn that the sounds of the letters ‘m-a-t’ blend together to make the word ‘mat’. Your child will then learn more sounds and will start blending them too.
- It can take until Year 2/Primary 3 before your child might have learned all 44 sounds in English and the many different spellings used for each sound.
Then the children will really start to read! They will learn to recognise the different letters or pairs of letters (graphemes) in a word, say the separate sounds (phonemes) slowly, then put (blend) them together. For example, they will be taught that the word ‘boat’ can be separated out (segmented) into ‘b-oa-t’ which represents the sounds bbb-oh–ttt. They can blend these sounds into the word ‘boat’
- In phonics we use the word decode to talk about reading a single word. We use the word segment to talk about breaking a word down into separate sounds and blend to talk about putting the sounds together to make a word.

What is synthetic phonics?

Synthetic phonics is just the technical term for the style of phonics teaching taught in our schools. Synthetic phonics requires the early reader to locate and sound out the individual sounds in a word and blend (or synthesise) them together to say the word.

How can I help at home?

There are lots of simple things you can do at home to help your child learn phonics.

Learn how to say the sounds using our Oxford Owl: Phonics or How to pronounce pure sounds.
Use flashcards to help your child practise saying sounds. Use the flashcards to make words for your child to read through blending. These words could be silly or even made up.
Listen to your child read every day, even just for five minutes. It really will make a difference. If your child gets stuck on a word, model how to say the sounds and blend them together. If you are worried that the book is at the wrong level for your child, check with your child’s teacher.
Read aloud to your child every day to show them that reading is fun.

Find more tips on our phonics support blog.

Find more tips for developing reading skills in our Reading pages >
Browse our Read with Oxford range of early readers to use at home >

What is the Year 1 phonics screening check?

If you live in England, your child will be given a phonics screening check in Year 1. The phonics screening check will find out how your child is progressing in phonics.

The test will be carried out informally by your child’s teacher in a one-to-one session. The teacher will ask your child to:

Sound out and blend graphemes (letters representing sounds) in order to read simple words.
Read phonically decodable (can be read using phonics) one-syllable and two-syllable words, for example cat, sand, windmill.
Read a selection of nonsense words (known as pseudo words) to check that your child is not guessing words and is able to read new words.

You can find more information and links to past papers on our phonics screening check page.

What is Letters and Sounds?

Letters and Sounds is a phonics programme published by the Department of Education and Skills. Many published phonics schemes follow the structure of Letters and Sounds. Find out more on our Letters and Sounds page.

Video: What is Phonics?

Find out how to best support your child in their discovery of phonics at home.

Read the blog

Learn more about Read Write Inc. and how their books can support your child in learning about phonics.

Find out more

Your child’s school might use a phonics scheme such as Letters and Sounds, Read Write Inc. Essential Letters and Sounds or Floppy’s Phonics, part of the Oxford Reading Tree series. A phonics scheme teaches the sounds and their spellings in a structured order. Most schemes also include flashcards and books that match the sounds they have learned so far.

Each scheme teaches the sounds in a slightly different order and will use slightly different vocabulary for talking about phonics. Your child’s school will be able to tell you about the phonics scheme they use.

Primary reading education. Onomatopoeia

Material Information: Parents

Primary reading instruction is sound imitation, the first phonetic lessons. It is onomatopoeia for children that is of paramount importance in order to quickly learn to read.

Children learn many things, including reading, through play, but these days reading skills are taught through a system. This is done from the very first days in kindergarten until the first years of elementary school. For parents, figuring out how to best support their child in the early stages of learning to read remains a bit of a mystery, especially since teaching methods have changed since they were in school.

Here we will talk about how children are prepared for reading in England from an early age. Parents can take note of this method and use it when teaching their child to read in their native language, as well as when teaching to read in English.

How to help a child?

The following are tips and advice for parents on the learning material children usually learn in school, as well as some ideas on how to help a child who is having difficulty.

Do it at ease

Remember that the purpose of phonetics is to help your child learn to read as quickly as possible so that he can freely read whatever he likes! No one wants reading to become a chore, so learning should be playful, engaging, and engaging.

Whatever stage your child is in, don't forget:

Phonetic lessons should be short and focused. Try to stop before the child gets tired of homework! As a rule, it should be no more than 10 minutes.
Make learning as fun as possible for your child, in a playful way.
Choose a time to study when your child is not yet tired, and find a quiet place where he will not be distracted by the TV or noisy siblings.
Even when your child has already learned to read on his own, continue to read books to him aloud! During this period, fairy tales and stories, high-quality popular science literature, as well as a pleasant quiet pastime with a discussion of what you have read are important!
If you are concerned about the poor progress of your child, go to https://zvukibukvy. ru/, where phonetic analysis of words is presented in all its diversity, or talk to the teacher. Share your concerns and ask for advice. This often helps and can be a great source of new ideas to support your child!

Children of early and preschool age

This is one of the most important moments for teaching children. They will absorb ideas and information like sponges, so this is a great time to start teaching them to read.

In preschool classes, educators help children develop the listening skills they will need to become successful readers. In songs, stories, nursery rhymes and games, babies discover many sounds. They begin to get used to hearing and repeating them. This stage is often called the first phase of phonetics.

Here is what they do in English kindergartens at this age period for children:

Listen to the sounds of the world and copy them.
Use of toys, objects, own body and voice to extract and copy sounds.
Listening to rhythms and rhymes (for example, identifying rhyming words in a nursery rhyme).
Listening to sounds in spoken words and separating the word into separate sounds (eg 'd-o-g' makes the word 'dog').

All of this may not seem very much like reading, since children do not focus on writing and words, but this is a very important preparation for the next stage.

Onomatopoeia games for children

Use what the child loves! If he loves animals, listen to how many different animal sounds he can make. Can he copy the sound you make and say what kind of animal it is? Or, if he loves trucks, cars, and excavators, encourage him to make the appropriate sounds when he plays.
When you and your child leave the house, listen to the sounds around you - birdsong, traffic noise, etc. Can your child tell that he makes a particular sound? Can he copy it?
Sing songs and rhymes with your child. Can your child clap their hands when they hear a rhyming word?
Clap your hands or tap something according to the rhythm. Can your child copy this? Can he clap his hands with his rhythm so that you copy him?

Teaching general phonetic rules

Phonetics is the use of sounds produced by individual letters and groups of letters to read words. Strictly speaking, phonetics, as a branch of linguistics, studies speech sounds, sound structure of the language (syllables, sound combinations, patterns of connecting sounds in a speech chain) and intonation with which they are pronounced.

Most schools in the UK now teach reading using phonics. It's widely used because research shows it works! That is why the official school curriculum says that children should be taught to read using the rules of phonetics.

English schools use many different phonics programs and systems - some of them are Jolly Phonics, Read Write Inc, Big Cat, Bug Club and Oxford Reading Tree. Thus, the exact order in which the various letter sounds are introduced depends on the scheme used by the school. But most of the sound schemes used in schools are based on the government's "Letters and Sounds" guide.

Writing and sounds are divided into five stages. Stage 1 is used in activities with preschoolers where they learn to listen to sounds and copy them. In kindergarten, before children start learning letter names, they develop listening and onomatopoeia skills. For children, this is necessary so that they tune in to different sounds in words, and then be able to recognize and pronounce them.

Children usually begin to really engage in Phase 2, towards the start of their first year of school. During this period, most of the letters of the alphabet are introduced. In kindergarten (Reception) and primary (Primary 1 and Primary 2) grades, the letters of the alphabet are entered in a set order, and children learn one sound for each letter. At this point, they can say and read simple short words such as 'c-a-t, cat' and 's-u-n, sun'. The children then learn that some letters make different sounds when they are connected, such as 'sh', 'ee' and 'ai'.

After children learn to read words with the most common letter-sound combinations, they move on to learning many alternative combinations and practice reading increasingly difficult words. By the time they finish their first year of primary school (in England, 5-6 year olds), most children will be able to read just about any familiar word in English. In the second grade (age 6-7 in England), children improve their skills by practicing using phonetics to read and write less familiar and more complex words.

Of course, while all this is happening, children are also learning to understand and enjoy what they read! In kindergarten and elementary school, teachers share wonderful fairy tales, stories and poems with children, encourage children to think, speak and enjoy reading .

you have been taught to read incorrectly for years

For decades the teaching of reading in schools has been based on an erroneous theory about how reading works. A theory that was debunked decades ago by cognitive scientists. But it is so deeply ingrained in teaching practices and learning materials that it continues to play a leading role in teaching reading. This doesn't just make it difficult for many children to learn to read. There are children who, under this traditional system, do not receive the basis for reading they need, and it becomes almost impossible for them to ever master this process.

So what do teachers and parents need to know about the science of reading? Here's a simple summary, plus two important tricky facts to inform your choice of reading programs:

What is the science of reading?

The term "science of reading" refers to research on how we learn to read by reading experts, specifically cognitive scientists. This knowledge, which has accumulated over twenty years, has helped to disprove the old methods of teaching reading, based on tradition and assumptions, not evidence.

Phonetic approach...

Based on the science of reading, the 2000 National Reading Panel Report stated that students need clear instruction in the basic components of reading : phonological awareness, phonetics, reading fluency, vocabulary and reading comprehension. The key difference between the scientific approach to reading and the alternatives is phonetics. The phonetic approach teaches children to start reading by manipulating the sounds in words, or by "speaking" the words.

...against the traditional approach to learning

An alternative to the phonetic approach in the debate about the correct method of teaching reading is the traditional method of teaching - the balanced literacy approach. This strategy evolved from the traditional approach to language learning in general, which assumed that children learn to read if they are given good books and taught "three-cue strategies". The three-cue strategy includes: semantic - semantic cues (does it make sense), syntactic - cues on sentence structure (does it sound right), and visual cues - revealing context from pictures (does it look right). This method is popular with many educators, as they believe it builds a love of books and reading.

Although traditional curricula now include some elements of the phonetic approach, they usually do not match the more coherent approach of programs based on the phonetic method. Moreover, the incorporation of limited elements of the phonetic approach into traditional teaching is not only less effective, it is not effective at all. According to Hanford, the strategies of the traditional approach, such as "three clues", are fundamentally at odds with the teaching of phonetics. “One negates the other,” says an expert in teaching reading (Hanford, 2019). This is why the debate about the right methods of teaching reading becomes a war: there can only be one winner.

Who wins?

So what guides teachers in choosing one method out of two? What matters is how the teachers learned to read themselves. A friend of mine recently told how she listened to her seven-year-old daughter read. When the girl reached the word she did not know, she began to look at the pictures to determine what the word was. Her mom asked, "Why don't you just read the word out loud?" Obviously, mom was taught phonetics, and her daughter was taught balanced literacy.

Other factors that influence instructional preference include the training teachers have received and the curriculum their school district uses. However, all this is changing as institutions increasingly adopt research-based teaching methods and strategies.

Skills beyond the science of reading

But that's not all. The science of reading includes a body of knowledge that goes beyond phonetics. Meaningful reading is broadly understood as “a complex task that depends on a range of cognitive and linguistic processes” (Nation, 2018).

The two most important components of reading that are not given as much attention as phonetics are working memory and auditory processing.

1. Working memory

Reading scientists have recently included working memory as an important skill for learning to read.

Working memory is different from simple memorization. When children memorize what common words look like and how letters and letter combinations are pronounced, they are using one of the most primitive and evolutionarily oldest parts of the brain, the hippocampus. The hippocampus stores memories and acts as a clerk, reaching out to different areas of the brain to retrieve them.

On the other hand, when children learn phonetics, they train their working memory, which is a higher order skill. Working memory engages the prefrontal cortex, a higher level area that includes executive functions that allow children to develop memory strategies and systems (Baddeley, 1983). Phonological working memory, in particular, is essential for phonetics and decoding.

Underdeveloped phonological working memory has been shown to be a factor in children's speech impairment (Montgomery, et al., 2019). Although working memory is rarely considered a skill that can be trained in reading programs, it can actually be developed with purpose.

"As challenging as reading is, thanks to advances in neuroscience and technology, we can now target key learning centers in the brain and identify the areas and neural pathways the brain uses to read. We not only understand why experienced readers are good readers, and novice readers have difficulty reading, but we can also help any reader on the journey from early language acquisition to reading and reading comprehension - it all happens in the brain."

2. Auditory perception (processing)

Phonetics is based on the ability to distinguish details within words, the ability to associate letters with heard phonemes (sounds). For children with hearing loss, this task is especially difficult. Students who cannot recognize small sound changes will inevitably have difficulty learning phonetics.

Most reading instruction manuals assume that by the time a child begins learning phonetics, auditory processing is fully developed. However, this assumption may not be correct; Hearing problems and/or auditory processing impairments affect a child's brain's ability to process sounds. Foreign language learners may also find it difficult to distinguish between similar-sounding phonemes if their native language is phonetically very different from the target language, meaning their brains are not trained to process similar sounds.

Research shows that processing speech sounds is the fastest thing the human brain can do. Those who lag behind in the accuracy and speed of auditory processing need to apply techniques that can act just as quickly and train the areas of the brain responsible for this cognitive function. Such brain training is effective both before the child begins to study phonetics, and during the subsequent study of phonetics in high school - for students who did not succeed in phonetics for the first time.

What can parents and educators do?

Be open to the science of reading, especially if you have been taught to teach using a traditional teaching approach. It's hard to hear that what you've believed in and used for years isn't the best teaching method for your students, but child development is worth the effort.
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