Children entering Phase Two will have experienced a wealth of listening activities, including songs, stories and rhymes. They may be able to distinguish between speech sounds and some may be able to blend and segment words orally. Those children who are non-verbal may still have the ability to learn Phase 2 and may go on to read without saying the sounds themselves.

The purpose of this phase is to teach at least 19 letter sounds and move children on from oral blending and segmentation to blending and segmenting with letters.

• By the end of the phase children may be able to read some VC (vowel/consonant) and CVC words and how to spell them.
• During the phase they may be introduced to reading two-syllable words and simple captions if appropriate, e.g. cooking, sitting.
• They may also learn to read some high-frequency ‘tricky’ words: the, to, go, no. These words are non-decodable meaning that they cant be sounded out.
• 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 which some children may already be able to do.
• Some children may not use Phonics as their preferred method to learn to read and may develop the skill of sight reading.

The letter sounds are taught in the following sets and children move through the sets progressively.

Set 1: s, a, t, p
Set 2: i, n, m, d                                                                       
Set 3: g, o, c, k
Set 4: ck, e, u, r
Set 5: h, b, f, ff, l, ll, ss

Activities/Ideas for Home

Letter Sounds

• Letter matching.
• Going on a letter hunt.
• Matching letters to pictures in catalogues/photographs/objects in the home.
• Searching for objects in the house beginning with the letter sound.
• Phonics fishing in the bath.
• Phonics mats displayed/used at home.
• Letters  hidden in media, e.g. sand, shaving foam.
• Reading books specifically focused on individual letter sounds/ reading books generally.
• Phonics games on computer/apps.
• Modelling of initial sounds of objects around the house, e.g. ‘b-b-ball’.

CVC Words

• Matching CVC words.
• Matching CVC words to pictures.
• Reading/sharing books containing CVC words and modelling segmenting and blending words.
• Building CVC words with magnetic letters.
• Writing CVC words in media, e.g. sand, shaving foam.
• Using milk bottle lids with letters on to build CVC words/letters from Scrabble.