Children entering Phase Five are able to read and spell words containing adjacent consonants and some polysyllabic words. The purpose of this phase is for children to broaden their knowledge of graphemes (letters) and phonemes (sounds) 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.  

 

New graphemes for reading

ay         eg.  day                         oy          eg.  boy                    wh       eg. when

a - e      eg.  make                      ou          eg.  out                     ir        eg. girl

ph         eg.  photo                      e - e      eg.  these                 ie        eg. tie

ue         eg.  blue                         ew         eg.  new                    i - e    eg. like

ea         eg.  eat                          aw          eg.  saw                    oe       eg. toe

au         eg.  Paul                         o - e      eg.  home                  u - e     eg. rule

 

They will also learn to read and spell the following high frequency words - oh, their, people, Mr, Mrs, looked, called, asked, said, so, have, like, some, come, were, there, little, one, do, when, what, out.

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.  

It must always be remembered that phonics is the step up to word recognition. Automatic reading of all words – decodable and tricky – is the ultimate goal.