"Children entering Phase Five are able to read and spell words containing adjacent consonants and some polysyllabic words. (See Appendix 3: Assessment.)...
... 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."

Weeks 1-4

• Practise recognition and recall of Phase Two, Three and Five graphemes as they are learned
• Teach new graphemes for reading (about four per week)
• Practise reading and spelling words with adjacent consonants and words with newly learned graphemes
• Learn new phoneme /zh/ in words such as treasure
• Teach reading the words oh, their, people, Mr, Mrs, looked, called, asked
• Teach spelling the words said, so, have, like, some, come, were, there
• Practise reading and spelling high-frequency words
• Practise reading and spelling polysyllabic words

Set Phase Two and Phase Three word lists as homework tasks.

Weeks 5-7

• Practise recognition and recall of graphemes and different pronunciations of graphemes as they are learned
• Teach alternative pronunciations of graphemes for reading (about four per week)
• Practise reading and spelling words with adjacent consonants and words with newly learned graphemes
• Teach reading the words water, where, who, again, thought, through, work, mouse, many, laughed, because, different, any, eyes, friends, once, please
• Teach spelling the words little, one, do, when, what, out
• Practise reading and spelling high-frequency words
• Practise reading and spelling polysyllabic words
  

Weeks 8-30

• Practise recognition and recall of graphemes and different pronunciations of graphemes as they are learned
• Teach alternative spellings of phonemes for spelling
•  Practise reading and spelling words with adjacent consonants and words with newly learned graphemes
• Teach spelling the words oh, their, people, Mr, Mrs, looked, called, asked
• Practise reading and spelling high-frequency words
• Practise reading and spelling polysyllabic words
  

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

By repeated sounding and blending of words, children get to know them, and once this happens they should be encouraged to read them straight off in reading text, rather than continuing to sound and blend them aloud because they feel that this is what is required.

They should continue, however, to use overt or silent phonics for words that are unfamiliar.

The Spellzone course is based on phonics.

New graphemes for reading
day, out, tie, eat
boy, girl, blue, saw
when, photo, new, toe, Paul
make, these, like, home, rule
New graphemes for reading flashcards (pdf)

It is probably unnecessary to continue teaching mnemonics for new graphemes. As children build up their speed of blending and read more and more words automatically, many of them will assimilate new graphemes in the course of their reading. To ensure that all children know these graphemes, they should be quickly introduced through high-frequency words such as those suggested above.

Example session for split digraph i-e
Resources:

• Grapheme cards t, m, p, n, and ie × 2 (pdf)
• High-frequency words that use the split digraph e.g. like, make, came, made.
  

Teaching alternative pronunciations for graphemes
Known graphemes for reading: common alternative pronunciations
Word lists:
fin, find
hot, cold
cat, cent
got, giant
but, put (south) 
cow, blow
tie, field
eat, bread
farmer, her
hat, what
yes, by, very
chin, school, chef
out, shoulder, could, you

Resources

• Words on individual cards, half of the words illustrating one pronunciation of a grapheme and half illustrating the other e.g.milk, find, wild, skin, kind, lift, child (pdf)
• Known graphemes for reading flashcards (pdf)
  

Flashcards
Resources

• Set of A4 size cards, one for each grapheme
• New graphemes for reading flashcards (pdf)
• Known graphemes for reading flashcards (pdf)

Quick copy
Resources

• Words using some newly learned graphemes in which all graphemes of two or more letters are underlined (e.g. pound, light, boy, sigh, out, joy)
• Same words without the underlining (e.g. pound, light, boy, sigh, out, joy)
  

Countdown
Resources

• List of Phase Five words. See lists on pages 151 -157. Print out as Flash cards.
  

Sentence substitution
Resources
New graphemes for reading

• A number of prepared sentences at the children's current level
  
• List of alternative words for each sentence:
  beans, reads, cooks, Phil
  toes, Jean, wait, toy
  they, yesterday, cake, make
  sleep, girls, run, sing
  found, she, tail, stone
  dentist, beach, enjoy, zoo
  noises, singing, frightening, mountains
  sold, made, punishment, Dad
  bird, bus, went, boy
  rope, we, glue, ribbon
  
  More reading practice with old and new GPCs

• A number of prepared sentences at the children's current level
• List of alternative words for each sentence:
  shirt, socks, Charlie, saw
  wealthy, fish, sport, sort
  help, goblins, teachers, home
  summer, wind, cold, frost
  elephants, watch, market, acrobats
  ship, you, might, go
  robber, put, oyster, jail
  tea, clay, children, wood
  goats, field, stay, sail
  kitten, cute, kitchen, hungry

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.

By the end of Phase Two, 26 of the high-frequency words are decodable; a further 12 are decodable by the end of Phase Three and six more at Phase Four. During Phase Five children learn many more graphemes so that more of these words become decodable.

Some of them have already been taught as tricky words in earlier phases, leaving 16 to be decoded in Phase Five. These are:
don't, day, here, old, house, made, saw, I'm, about, came, very, by, your, make, put, time.

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 sentences 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).

Learning to read tricky words
oh, their, people, Mr, Mrs, looked, called, asked, would, should, could

Both the decodable and tricky high-frequency words need lots of practice 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).

Resources

• Short list of two-syllable and three-syllable words (for use by the teacher).

Create your own word lists or use those already on Spellzone. Use the Search Word Lists facility to find words.

Yes/no questions
Resources:

• A number of prepared questions (see page 128 for suggestions) 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 printed the back to back).

Choosing three right answers
Resources:

• A number of prepared questions or statements (pdf).

Homographs
Resources:

• Six sentences using homographs.

Teaching alternative spellings for phonemes
Alternative spellings for each phoneme poster (pdf)

Best bet
Resources:

• Lists of words generated from 'Phoneme spotter' or a variation, under grapheme headers. Example poster (pdf)

Children should be able to read these words before being expected to learn to spell them.
no, have, some, were, when, go, like, come, there, what, so, one, little, do, out
Note: Although ending in the letter e, some, come and have are not split digraph words. It is easiest to suggest that the last phoneme is represented by a consonant and the letter e. It is not possible to show the phonemes represented by graphemes in the word one.

Resources

• List of words
  

Practising writing sentences
Resources

• Sentence including words you wish to practise

Create your own word lists or use those already on Spellzone. Use the Search Word Lists  facility to find the words.

See 'Notes of Guidance for Practitioners and Teachers', page 16.)
By the end of Phase Five children should:

• give the sound when shown any grapheme that has been taught;
• for any given sound, write the common graphemes;
• apply phonic knowledge and skill as the prime approach to reading and spelling unfamiliar words that are not completely decodable;
• read and spell phonically decodable two-syllable and three-syllable words;
• read automatically all the words in the list of 100 high frequency words;
• accurately spell most of the words in the list of 100 high frequency words;
• form each letter correctly.
  

Some new graphemes for reading
Words in italics are high-frequency words.
ay - day, play, may, say, stray, clay, spray, tray, crayon, delay
ou - out, about, cloud, scout, found, proud, sprout, sound, loudest, mountain
ie - pie, lie, tie, die, cried, tried, spied, fried, replied, denied
ea - sea, seat, bead, read, meat, treat, heap, least, steamy, repeat
oy - boy, toy, joy, oyster, Roy, destroy, Floyd, enjoy, royal, annoying
ir - girl, sir, bird, shirt, skirt, birth, third, first, thirteen, thirsty
ue - clue, blue, glue, true, Sue, Prue, rue, flue, issue, tissue
aw - saw, paw, raw, claw, jaw, lawn, yawn, law, shawl, drawer
wh - when, what, which, where, why, whistle, whenever, wheel, whisper, white, who, whose, whole, whom, whoever
ph - Philip, Philippa, phonics, sphinx, Christopher, dolphin, prophet, phantom, elephant, alphabet
ew - blew, chew, grew, drew, screw, crew, brew, flew, threw, Andrew, stew, few, new, dew, pew, knew, mildew, nephew, renew, Matthew
oe - toe, hoe, doe, foe, woe, Joe, goes, tomatoes, potatoes, heroes
au - Paul, haul, daub, launch, haunted, Saul, August, jaunty, author, automatic
ey - money, honey, donkey, cockney, jockey, turkey, chimney, valley, trolley, monkey

a-e - came, made, make, take, game, race, same, snake, amaze, escape
e-e - these, Pete, Eve, Steve, even, theme, gene, scene, complete, extreme
i-e - like, time, pine, ripe, shine, slide, prize, nice, invite, inside
o-e - bone, pole, home, alone, those, stone, woke, note, explode, envelope
u-e - June, flute, prune, rude, rule, huge, cube, tube, use, computer

Known graphemes for reading: alternative pronunciations
a as in hat: acorn, apron, angel, apricot, bagel, station, nation, Amy, lady, was, what, wash, wasp, squad, squash, want, watch, wallet, wander
(northern England accent): fast, path, pass, father, bath, last, grass, after, branch, afternoon
e as in bed: he, me, she, we, be, the, recent, frequent, region, decent
i as in tin: mind, find, wild, pint, blind, child, kind, grind, behind, remind
o as in hot: no, so, go, old, don't, gold, cold, told, both, hold
u as in but: unit, union, unicorn, music, tuba, future, human, stupid, duty, humour
(northern England accent): put, pull, push, full, bush, bull, cushion, awful, playful, pudding

ow as in down: low, grow, snow, glow, bowl, tow, show, slow, window, rowing-boat
ie as in pie: chief, brief, field, shield, priest, yield, shriek, thief, relief, belief
ea as in sea: head, dead, deaf, ready, bread, heaven, feather, pleasant, instead, breakfast
er as in farmer: her, fern, stern, Gerda, herbs, jerky, perky, Bernard, servant, permanent
ou as in out: you, soup, group, could, would, should, mould, shoulder, boulder
y as in yes: by, my, try, why, dry, fry, sky, spy, fry, reply, gym, crystal, mystery, crystal, pyramid, Egypt, bicycle, Lynne, cygnet, rhythm, very, happy, funny, carry, hairy, smelly, penny, crunchy, lolly, merrily
ch as in chin: school, Christmas, chemist, chord, chorus, Chris, chronic, chemical, headache, technical, chef, Charlene, Chandry, Charlotte, machine, brochure, chalet
c as in cat: cell, central, acid, cycle, icy, cent, Cynthia, success, December, accent
g as in got: gent, gym, gem, Gill, gentle, ginger, Egypt, magic, danger, energy
ey as in money: they, grey, obey, prey, survey

Alternative spellings for each phoneme
/ch/ - picture, adventure, creature, future, nature, capture, feature, puncture, signature, mixture, catch, fetch, pitch, notch, crutch, stitch, match, ditch, kitchen, scratchy
/j/ - fudge, hedge, bridge, ledge, nudge, badge, lodge, podgy, badger, dodging
/m/ - lamb, limb, comb, climb, crumb, dumb, thumb, numb, plumbing, bomber
/n/ - gnat, gnaw, gnash, gnome, sign, design, resign, knit, knob, knot, knee, knock, knife, know, knew, knight, knuckle
/r/ - wrap, wren, wrong, wrench, write, wrote, wreck, wry, written, wretched
/s/ - listen, whistle, bristle, glisten, Christmas, rustle, jostle, bustle, castle, wrestling, house, mouse, grease, cease, crease, horse, gorse, purse, grouse, loose
/z/ - please, tease, ease, rouse, browse, cheese, noise, pause, blouse, because
/u/ - some, come, done, none, son, nothing, month, mother, worry, brother
/i/ - happy, sunny, mummy, daddy, only, gym, crystal, mystery, sympathy, pyramid, donkey, valley, monkey, chimney, trolley, pulley, Lesley
/ear/ - part 1 - here, mere, severe, interfere, Windermere, adhere
/ear/ - part 2 - beer, deer, jeer, cheer, peer, sneer, sheer, veer, career, steering

/ar/ - part 1 - father, lather, rather, pass, path, bath, last, grass, afternoon, branching
/ar/ - part 2 - half, calf, almond, calm, qualm, lip balm, palm tree
/air/ - part 1 - there, where, nowhere, somewhere, everywhere
/air/ - part 2 - pear, bear, wear, tear, swear
/air/ - part 3 - bare, care, dare, fare, hare, mare, square, scare, stare, share
/or/ - part 1 - all, always, talk, walk, wall, fall, ball, hall, calling, beanstalk
/or/ - part 2 - four, pour, your, court, fourth, Seymour, tour, mourn, fourteen, tournament
/or/ - part 3 - caught, taught, naughty, haughty, daughter, Vaughan
/ur/ - part 1 - learn, earn, earth, pearl, early, search, heard, earnest, rehearsal
/ur/ - part 2 - word, work, world, worm, worth, worse, worship, worthy, worst
/oo/ - part 1 - could, would, should
/oo/ - part 2 - put, pull, push, full, bush, bull, cushion, pudding, playful

/ai/ - part 1 - day, play, may, say, stray, clay, spray, tray, crayon, delay
/ai/ - part 2 - came, made, make, take, game, race, same, snake, amaze, escape
/ee/ - part 1 - sea, seat, bead, read, meat, treat, heap, least, steamy, repeat
/ee/ - part 2 - these, Pete, Eve, Steve, even, theme, complete, Marlene, gene, extreme
/ee/ - part 3 - happy, sunny, mummy, daddy, only, funny, sadly, penny, heavy, quickly
/ee/ - part 4 - chief, brief, field, shield, priest, yield, shriek, thief, relief, belief
/ee/ - part 5 - key, donkey, valley, monkey, chimney, trolley, pulley, Lesley, money, honey
/igh/ - part 1 - pie, lie, tie, cried, tried, spied, fried, replied, applied, denied
/igh/ - part 2 - by, my, try, why, dry, fry, sky, spy, deny, reply
/igh/ - part 3 - like, time, pine, ripe, shine, slide, prize, nice, decide, polite
/oa/ - part 1 - low, grow, snow, glow, bowl, tow, show, slow, window, rowing boat
/oa/ - part 2 - toe, hoe, doe, foe, woe, Joe, goes, Glencoe, heroes, echoes
/oa/ - part 3 - bone, pole, home, woke, those, stone, woke, note, phone, alone
/(y) oo/ - part 1 - cue, due, hue, venue, value, pursue, queue, statue, rescue, argue
/(y) oo/ - part 2 - tune, cube, tube, use, cute, duke, huge, mule, amuse, computer
/(y) oo/ - part 3 - stew, few, new, dew, pew, knew, mildew, nephew, renew, Matthew
/oo/ - part 1 - clue, blue, glue, true, Sue, Prue, rue, flue, issue, tissue
/oo/ - part 2 - June, flute, prune, rude, fluke, brute, spruce, plume, rule, conclude
/oo/ - part 3 - blew, chew, grew, drew, screw, crew, brew, flew, threw, Andrew

/sh/ - part 1 - special, official, social, artificial, facial, station, patience, caption, mention, position
/sh/ - part 2 - sure, sugar, passion, session, mission, chef, Charlotte, Charlene, Michelle, Chandry

New phoneme
treasure, television, vision, pleasure, leisure, beige, visual, measure, usual, casual

Sentences and substitute words for 'sentence substitution'
(See page 139 of Letters and Sounds)
New graphemes for reading

• A number of prepared sentences at the children's current level
• List of alternative words for each sentence:
  beans, reads, cooks, Phil
  toes, Jean, wait, toy
  they, yesterday, cake, make
  sleep, girls, run, sing
  found, she, tail, stone
  dentist, beach, enjoy, zoo
  noises, singing, frightening, mountains
  sold, made, punishment, Dad
  bird, bus, went, boy
  rope, we, glue, ribbon
  
  More reading practice with old and new GPCs

• A number of prepared sentences at the children's current level
• List of alternative words for each sentence:
  shirt, socks, Charlie, saw
  wealthy, fish, sport, sort

help, goblins, teachers, home
summer, wind, cold, frost
ship, you, might, go
robber, put, oyster, jail
tea, clay, children, wood
goats, field, stay, sail
kitten, cute, kitchen, hungry

Questions for Yes/no questions
(See page 142 of Letters and Sounds)
Yes/no questions
A number of prepared questions on card or on an interactive whiteboard (pdf)
Cards with 'yes' on one side and 'no' on the other (pdf printed back to back)

Examples for 'Choosing three right answers'
(See page 143 of Letters and Sounds)
A number of prepared questions or statements (pdf)