Letters and Sounds: Phase 3

The purpose of this phase...
"Children entering Phase Three will know around 19 letters and be able to blend phonemes to read VC words and segment VC words to spell. While many children will be able to read and spell CVC words, they all should be able to blend and segment CVC words orally…"

"The purpose of this phase is to teach another 25 graphemes (listed below), most of them comprising two letters (e.g. oa), so the children can represent each of about 42 phonemes…"

"Children also continue to practise CVC blending and segmentation in this phase and will apply their knowledge of blending and segmenting to reading and spelling simple two-syllable words and captions…"

"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…"

Letters:
Set 6: j, v, w, x*
Letters Set 6 and 7 (pdf)
Set 7: y, z, zz, qu*

The Spellzone Starter Course includes recorded sounds and teaches all the basic phonic rules and includes the top 100 high frequency words.

Week 1

• Practise previously learned letters and sounds.
• Teach Set 6 letters and sounds:
• Practise blending for reading
• Practise segmentation for spelling:
• Practise reading high-frequency words
• Read sentences using Sets 1–6 letters and the tricky words no, go, I, the, to

Week  2

• Practise previously learned letters and sounds
• Teach Set 7 letters and sounds
• Practise blending for reading
• Practise segmentation for spelling
• Teach reading the tricky words he, she
• Practise reading and spelling high-frequency words
• Teach spelling the tricky words the and to
• Practise reading captions and sentences with Sets 1–7 letters and he, she, no, go, I, the, to

Week 3

• Practise previously learned GPCs
• Teach the four consonant digraphs
• Practise blending for reading
• Practise segmentation for spelling
• Teach reading the tricky words we, me, be
• Practise reading and spelling high-frequency words
• Practise reading two-syllable words
• Practise reading captions and sentences
• Practise writing captions and sentences

Week 4

• Practise previously learned GPCs
• Teach four of the vowel digraphs
• Practise blending for reading
• Practise segmentation for spelling
• Teach reading the tricky word was
• Teach spelling the tricky words no and go
• Practise reading and spelling high-frequency words
• Practise reading two-syllable words
• Practise reading captions and sentences
• Practise writing captions and sentences

Week 5

• Practise previously learned GPCs
• Teach four more vowel digraphs
• Practise blending for reading
• Practise segmentation for spelling
• Teach reading the tricky word my
• Practise reading and spelling high-frequency words
• Teach spelling two-syllable words
• Practise reading captions and sentences
• Practise writing captions and sentences

Week 6

• Practise previously learned GPCs
• Teach four more vowel digraphs
• Practise letter names
• Practise blending for reading
• Practise segmentation for spelling
• Teach reading the tricky word you
• Practise reading and spelling high-frequency words
• Practise spelling two-syllable words
• Practise reading captions and sentences
• Practise writing captions and sentences

Week 7

• Practise previously learned GPCs
• Teach four more vowel digraphs
• Practise letter names
• Practise blending for reading
• Practise segmentation for spelling
• Teach reading the tricky word they
• Practise reading and spelling high-frequency words
• Practise spelling two-syllable words
• Practise reading captions and sentences
• Practise writing captions and sentences

Week 8

• Practise all GPCs
• Practise letter names
• Practise blending for reading
• Practise segmentation for spelling
• Teach reading the tricky word her
• Practise reading and spelling high-frequency words
• Practise spelling two-syllable words
• Practise reading captions and sentences
• Practise writing captions and sentence

Week 9

• Practise all GPCs
• Practise letter names
• Practise blending for reading
• Practise segmentation for spelling
• Teach reading the tricky word all
• Practise reading and spelling high-frequency words
• Practise spelling two-syllable words
• Practise reading captions and sentences
• Practise writing captions and sentences

Week 10

• Practise all GPCs
• Practise letter names
• Practise blending for reading
• Practise segmentation for spelling
• Teach reading the tricky word are
• Practise reading and spelling words
• Practise spelling two-syllable high-frequency words
• Practise reading captions and sentences
• Practise writing captions and sentences

Weeks 11–12

• More consolidation if necessary, or move on to Phase Four.

In teaching the remaining Sets 6 and 7 letters:

Words using Sets 1 – 6 GPCs:
(+j) - jam, Jill, jet, jog, Jack, Jen, jet-lag, jacket
(+v) - van, vat, vet, Vic, Ravi, Kevin, visit, velvet
(+w) - will, win, wag, web, wig, wax, cobweb, wicked
(+x) - mix, fix, box, tax, six, taxi, vixen, exit

Words using Sets 1–7 GPCs:
(+y) - yap, yes, yet, yell, yum-yum
(+z/zz) - zip, Zak, buzz, jazz, zigzag
(+qu) - quiz, quit, quick, quack, liquid

Introducing two-letter GPCs
Two-part example session for teaching sh
Resources:

• sh cards (pdf)
• sh words (pdf)

Procedure:
See it and say it

2. Recall that the children have already seen two letters being used in the recently learned q, which always has a u after it, and also ck and the double letters zz to ff, ll, and ss;  at the ends of some words.

3. Write some sh words on the whiteboard and others as foils.
Download as flash cards: shut, fish, shop, dash, wishes, shell, rushed, hiss, stop, such (pdf)

4. Ask six children to come to the whiteboard and one a time to find the word with a sh grapheme and underline the grapheme.

Flashcards
Resources:

• Set of cards with a grapheme on one side and its mnemonic on the other (e.g. sh on one side and a picture of a finger to the mouth on the other).

What's in the box?
Resources:

• Set of word cards (e.g. with words containing Sets 6 and 7 letters and Phase Three graphemes.

Countdown
Resources:

• List of Phase Three words

Select Phase Three word lists (from the resources section below) and print flash cards to use in the countdown activity.

Sentence substitution
Resources:

• A number of prepared sentences at the children's current level
  
• Lists of alternative words for each sentence:

  dog, hid, Gail, moon
  bedroom, farmyard, cars, wait
  toad, song, see, coin
  market, summer, we, fish
  church, right, shark, boat
  boots, boats, seen, He
  chair, fell, soil, weeds
  food, seen, hard, Joan
  them, park, keep, coach
  coats, year, coffee, bad
  

Matching words and pictures
Resources:

• As 'What's in the box?' above.

Buried Treasure
Resources:

• Set of nonsense word cards: jarm, win, jowd, yes, wug, zip, quit, vil
  
  

Sorting
Resources:

• Words, such as the names of farm and zoo animals e.g. zebra, camel, hen, chimpanzee, panda, cow, yak, sheep, goat, duck.

Phase Three two-letter and three-letter graphemes

Follow the same procedure as for Sets 6 and 7 words. It is important that the graphemes are units, not separate letters.

Quick write words
Resources:

• Phoneme frame worksheets for use by the teacher ai, ee, igh, oa, oo, ar, or, ur, ow, oi, ear, air, ure, er (pdfs)

Full circle
Resources:
When the graphemes sh, ch, th and ng have been learned:

• List of words ship, chip, chin, thin, than, can, cash, rash, rang, ring, rip, ship and letters sh, ch, th, ng, p, n, r, c, a, i (pdf), for each pair of children.
• List of words song, long, lock, shock, shop, chop, chip, chick, thick, thing, sing, song and letters ch, sh, ck, th, ng, s, l,p, i, o (pdf), for each pair of children.

When the graphemes for the new vowel sounds have been learned:

•  List of words car, card, lard, laid, maid, mood, moon, moan, moat, mart, cart, car and letters ar, ai, oo, oa, c, d, l, m, n, t (pdf), for each pair of children
• List of words light, right, root, room, roam, road, raid, paid, pain, main, mail, sail, sigh, sight and letters ai, igh, oo, oa, l, t, r, m, d, p, n, s (pdf), for each pair of children

There are 100 common words that recur frequently in much of the written material young children read and that they need when they write. Most of these are decodable, by sounding and blending, assuming the grapheme–phoneme correspondences are known, but only 26 of the high-frequency words are decodable by the end of Phase Two and a further 12 are decodable by the end of Phase Three. These are will, with, that, this, then, them, see, for, now, down, look and too.

Reading a group of these words each day, by applying grapheme-phoneme knowledge as it is acquired, will help children recognise them quickly. However, in order to read simple captions it is necessary also to know some words that have unusual or untaught GPCs, 'tricky' words, and these need to be learned (see Notes of Guidance for Practitioners and Teachers, page 15, for an explanation).

Why not set Spellzone word lists as homework tasks?

Learning to read tricky words
he, she, we, me,  be, was, my, you, her, they, all, are (pdf)

Resources:

• Caption containing the tricky word to be learned.

Practising high-frequency words
The 12 decodable and 12 tricky high-frequency words need lots of practice in the manner described below so that children will be able to read them 'automatically' as soon as possible.

Resources:

• Between five and eight high-frequency words, including decodable and tricky words, written on individual cards (pdfs).
  Decodable and tricky words with sound buttons (pdfs).

Learning to spell and practising tricky words
Children should be able to read these words before being expected to learn to spell them.
the, to, no, go, I

Procedure:
2. Say a sentence using the word.

Reading two-syllable words
Resources:

• Short list of two-syllable words (for use by the teacher) using Sets 1-7 letters or using phase three vowel graphemes (pdfs).

Introducing spelling two-syllable words
Resources:

• Short list of two-syllable words (for use by the teacher) using Sets 1-7 letters or using phase three vowel graphemes (pdfs).

Reading captions: Matching (with the teacher)
Resources:

• Caption or sentence for one of the pictures  

Procedure:
8. As children get more practice with the high-frequency words, it should not be necessary to continue sound-talking them.

Reading captions: Matching (independent of the teacher)
Resources:
Captions or sentences for one of the pictures 

Drawing
Resources:

• Two captions or sentences
  

Why not create your own word lists with sentences?

'I can...' books
Resources:

• Action phrases on cards (pdf)
• Zigzag book templates (pdf)

Yes/no questions
Resources:

• A number of prepared questions on card or on an interactive whiteboard (pdf)
• Cards with 'yes' on one side and 'no' on the other, one per pair of children (pdf)

Demonstration writing
Resources:

Pictures of subjects that have VC, CV and CVC names (pdf)

By the end of Phase Three children should:

• give the sound when shown all or most Phase Two and Phase Three graphemes;
• find all or most  Phase Two and Phase Three graphemes, from a display, when given the sound;
• be able to blend and read CVC words (i.e. single-syllable words consisting of Phase Two and Phase Three graphemes);
• be able to segment and make a phonemically plausible attempt at spelling CVC words(i.e. single-syllable words consisting of Phase Two and Phase Three graphemes);
• be able to read the tricky words he, she, we, me, be, was, my, you, her, they, all, are;
• be able to spell the tricky words the, to, I, no, go;

The words in this section are made up from the letters taught for use in blending for reading and segmentation for spelling. These lists are not for working through slavishly but to be selected from as needed for an activity. (Words in italics are from the list of 100 high frequency words).

Words and sentences using sets – letters

Words using sets 1 – 6 GPCs

(+j) - jam, Jill, jet, jog, Jack, Jen, jet-lag, jacket
(+v) - van, vat, vet, Vic, Ravi, Kevin, visit, velvet
(+w) - will, win, wag, web, wig, wax, cobweb, wicked
(+x) - mix, fix, box, tax, six, taxi, vixen, exit

Words using sets 1 – 7 GPCs

(+y) - yap, yes, yet, yell, yum-yum
(+z/zz) - zip, Zak, buzz, jazz, zigzag
(+qu) - quiz, quit, quick, quack, liquid

Yes/no questions with words containing sets 1–6 GPCs
Yes/no questions with words containing sets 1–7 GPCs

Sentences using words containing sets – GPCs and he, we and she

Sentences are offered here to give children practice in reading and understanding short texts which are fully decodable.

Words and sentences using Phase Three graphemes

Words using the four consonant digraphs
Each of these words contains the target grapheme but no other Phase Three graphemes. This means that the Phase Three graphemes can be taught in any order.

ch - chop, chin, chug, check, such, chip, chill, much, rich, chicken
sh - ship, shop, shed, shell, fish, shock, cash, bash, hush, rush
th - them, then, that, this, with, moth, thin, thick, path (north), bath (north)
ng - ring, rang, hang, song, wing, rung, king, long, sing, ping-pong

Sentences with Set 1–7 letters plus the four consonant digraphs and some tricky words

Words using the Phase Three vowel graphemes

ee - see, feel, weep, feet, jeep, seem, meet, week, deep, keep
igh - high, sigh, light, might, night, right, sight, fight, tight, tonight
oa - coat, load, goat, loaf, road, soap, oak, toad, foal, boatman
oo - too, zoo, boot, hoof, zoom, cool, food, root, moon, rooftop, look, foot, cook, good, book, took, wood, wool, hook, hood
ar - bar, car, bark, card, cart, hard, jar, park, market, farmyard
or - for, fork, cord, cork, sort, born, worn, fort, torn
ur - fur, burn, urn, burp, curl, hurt, surf, turn, turnip, curds
ow - now, down, owl, cow, how, bow, pow!, row, town, towel
oi - oil, boil, coin, coil, join, soil, toil, quoit, poison, tinfoil 
ear - ear, dear, fear, hear, gear, near, tear, year, rear, beard
air - air, fair , hair, lair, pair, cairn
ure - sure, lure, assure, insure, pure, cure, secure, manure, mature
er - hammer, letter, rocker, ladder, supper, dinner, boxer, better, summer, banner

Words with a combination of two Phase Three graphemes

cheep, tooth, chair, sharp, torch, looking, sheet, harsh, waiter, poach, orchard, powder, thing, short, arch, shoal, north, lightning, thorn, church
and
chain, shook, farmer, porch, teeth, singer, faith, shark, shorter, thicker, coach, shear, sheep, march, longer

Captions
Captions (pdf)
Sentences

Sentences for the end of Phase Three

On the farm
In town
In a wigwam
At the river
In the woods

Sentences for 'Sentence substitution'
Yes/no questions suitable for the end of Phase Three