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.
Children entering Phase Five will already be able to read and spell words with adjacent consonants, such as trap, string and flask. They will also be able to read and spell some polysyllabic words.
Phase 5 Letters and Sounds
In Phase Five, children will learn more graphemes and phonemes. For example, they already know ‘ai’ as in rain, but now they will be introduced to ‘ay’ as in the day and ‘a-e’ as in make. Alternative pronunciations for graphemes will also be introduced, e.g. ‘ea’ in tea, head and break. With practice, the speed at recognizing and blending graphemes will improve. Word and spelling knowledge will be worked on extensively.
As schooling progresses, children are taught simple; single letter sounds from the alphabet before moving on to learning about digraphs, trigraphs, and splits digraphs.
Phase 5 introduces some graphemes one at a time. Phase 5 letters and sounds typically follow this order:
Letters: a, c, e, g, i, o, u, y
Consonant Digraphs: ch, ph, wh
Vowel Digraphs: au, aw, ay, a-e, ea, ee, ei, er, ew, ey, e-e, ie, ir, i-e, oe, ou, ow, oy, o-e, ue, ui, ur, u-e
Grapheme | Example | Grapheme | Example |
au | haunt | aw | saw |
ay | day | a-e | came |
ch | chapter | ea | sea |
ee | green | ei | heist |
er | never | ew | chew |
ey | money | e-e | these |
ie | believe | ir | girl |
i-e | like | oe | toe |
ou | out | ow | now |
oy | boy | o-e | bone |
ph | photo | ue | clue |
ui | suitable | ur | turn |
u-e | huge | wh | when |
Letters | Words | ||
a | apply | ||
c | cat | ||
e | egg | ||
g | goal | ||
i | idea | ||
o | orange | ||
u | uncle | ||
y | year |
During Phase 5, the following tricky terms are introduced:
Phase 5 Tricky Words List
Tricky words are the 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.
Tricky Words | Examples |
Oh | Oh, God! I have lost my keys! |
Their | The green one is their house. |
People | I made friends with many people on the train. |
Mr | We are lodging with Mr Brown. |
Mrs | How long are you here, Mrs Dina? |
Looked | She looked up at him. |
Called | The people called them the Indian. |
Asked | I asked him if he ever wished to write his thoughts. |
Cloud | A black cloud seemed to cover the earth. |
Don’t | Don’t worry about it. |
Old | I am saving money for my old age. |
I’m | I’m an attentive student. |
By | That work was done by me. |
Time | The value of time is immense. |
House | A house without a child is not a home. |
About | Do you want to know about me? |
Your | Did you forget all your good manners? |
Day | “This may be the last great day”, he said. |
Made | This made him very proud of his skill. |
Came | I came to talk to you. |
Make | Did you make any real progress? |
Here | He didn’t come here to talk to me. |
Saw | It seems like years since I saw you last. |
Very | I love my parents very much. |
Put | The dog was put to sleep. |
We hope that this short guide gave you a brief overview about letters and sounds taught in phase 5 phonics.
Keep exploring EnglishBix for quality resources on phonics for your kids.