Phonics in Year 1

In Year 1, we focus on Phase 5. The purpose of this phase is for children to broaden their knowledge of graphemes and phonemes for use in reading and spelling. They will learn new graphemes and alternative pronunciations for these and graphemes they already know, where relevant. Some of the alternatives will already have been encountered in the high-frequency words that have been taught. Children become quicker at recognising graphemes of more than one letter in words and at blending the phonemes they represent. When spelling words they will learn to choose the appropriate graphemes to represent phonemes and begin to build word-specific knowledge of the spellings of words.

Reading

• Teaching further graphemes for reading

• Teaching alternative pronunciations for graphemes

• Practising recognition of graphemes in reading words

• Teaching and practising reading high-frequency (common) words

• Practising reading two-syllable and three-syllable words

• Practising reading sentences

Spelling

• Teaching alternative spellings for phonemes

• Learning to spell and practising high-frequency words

• Practising spelling two-syllable and three-syllable words

• Practising writing sentences