Phase 3 Phonics: Letters and Sounds with Tricky Words

Phonics is a method of teaching children to read. Phonics works by breaking words down into its sounds. There are 44 different sounds in the English language. Learning to read with phonics is, therefore, a bit like learning a code, after learning just a few sounds, you will be able to use it to read 100’s of words. The more sounds you know, the more words you will be able to work out how to understand.

Not all words are phonetically decode-able; however, a select few terms you need to learn through the ‘sight words’ method of learning to read. Sight words are when you learn to read by memorizing 1,000’s of words individually. It would be an easy task for someone who had learned to read with phonics and could use their decoding skills to break each word down into its letter sounds.

The first lesson in phonics is teaching children to recognize and differentiate between different sounds. It typically starts by asking children to listen to sounds that you can hear, such as the sounds that animals make, or sounds you hear when you go outside.

Letters and Sounds Phase 3 for Teaching

As schooling progresses, children are taught simple; single letter sounds from the alphabet before moving on to learning about digraphs, trigraphs, and split digraphs.

Phase 3 introduces twenty-five new graphemes one at a time. Letters and sounds typically follow this order:

Set 6: j, v, w, x     Set 7: y, z, zz, qu

Consonant digraphs: ch, sh, th, ng

Vowel digraphs: ai, ee, igh, oa, oo, ar, or, ur, ow, oi, ear, air, ure, e

Grapheme	Example	Grapheme	Example
ch	chop	ar	arm
sh	ship	or	for
th	thick/there	ur	hurt
ng	sing	ow	now
ai	rain	oi	coin
ee	sheep	ear	near
igh	fight	air	hair
oa	boat	ure	pure
oo	look	er	digge

Set 6	Set 7
j	y
v	z
w	zz
x	qu

Phase 3 Tricky Words List for Kids

Tricky words are words that children will commonly encounter when they are reading, but they are words that they cannot use their existing phonic knowledge to decode. Tricky words should be taught in a discrete manner so that children can access a broader range of texts without always facing words that they cannot read.

I	Go	To	The	No
He	She	We	Me	Be
Was	You	They	All	Are
My	Said	Have	Like	So
Do	her	Some	Come	Were
There	Their	Look	Down	Too
Now	For	Will	With	This
Then	Them	Chop	Chin	Hush
Rush	Such	Chip	Jam	Jill
Jet	Jog	Jack	Jen	Six
Taxi	Box	Tax	Mix	Fix
Yap	Yes	Buzz	Jazz	Quiz
Quit	Yet	Yell	Fox	Ship
Zebra	Thub	Sheep	Moon	Surf
Afraid	Train	Spain	Again	Plain
Complaint	Grain	Raining	Staip	Quaim
Flaip	Porlain	Splain	Splait	Prain
Glaib	Splaid	Verb	Shirt	Butter
Helper	Thirst	Dinner	Sister	Train
finger	Teacher	Main	Expert	Burp
Sharks	Lobster	Curb	Float	Perfect
Mark	Torn	Moth	Thin	Thick
Path	Bath	Thorn	Beth	Path
Last	Past	Clothes	Busy	Mr
Mrs	Parents	Father	Christmas	Everybody
Hold	Told	Wild	Climb	Kind
Mind	Steak	Pretty	Old	Cold
Pass	Plant	Eye	Could	Move
Prove	Whole	Any	Water	Sure
Sugar	Hour	Because	Find	Door
Floor	Flour	Through	Laughed	Couldn’t
Didn’t	That’s	Only	Eat	Small
Chair	Fizz	Ring	Light	Book
Cow	Treasure	Queen	Rain	Goat
Car	Coin	Germ	Fork	Ear
Jam	Web	Boot	Owl	Chain
Chair	Fizz	Ring	Light	Book
Later	Chatter	Load	Gather	Leather
Pure	Many	Weight	No	Leave
Live	Give	Under	Ride	Brown
goes	Never	Cleaver	Bear	beer

Keep exploring EnglishBix to learn letters and sounds associated with different phonics phases.

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