Tell me about phonics phases please

[chivers1977]

My son has just moved to green level reading books in Y1 and I wrote in the reading record that he didn't know the EA or OA phonemes. The teacher has responded that those are phase 5 and he is on phase 4 C8. I have tried googling but can't find what this relates to.

Any teachers able to assist?

THanks

I think they mean 'letters and sounds'

Hereis the letters and sounds document that Indigobel was mentioning. Phase 4 is
nationalstrategies.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/node/83118?uc=force_uj

You can also look up what the children will learn in phase 5 by looking here nationalstrategies.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/node/83133?uc=force_uj

oa is phase 3 IIRC

Thank you ladies. Any ideas what C8 would be within Phase 4?

Whoops, it was OU that I had queried not OA and OU is definitely in Phase 5. In a standard state primary school would phase 4 be the normal level for this term in Year 1.

He is doing fine IMHO but just interested to know more and I don't get to see the teachers after school to ask....

Just to clarify; 'ea' and 'oa' are technically called 'graphemes'. That is, they are spellings which represent a phoneme ('sound'), in this case, the /ee/ and /oe/ sounds respectively. There are only 44ish phonemes but lots of graphemes (about 160+ common ones)

IB is right, the teacher is referring to Letters and Sounds, which is taught (completely unnecessarily) in 'phases'. I would be strongly tempted to put another note in his reading record asking why he is being expected to read words containing phase 5 graphemes when he hasn't yet been taught them.

No idea what C8 is. Could it be something to do with the phonic program the school chooses to follow? (eg. RWI or Jolly Phonics) Someone else may know a bit more about this.

I think that phase 4 is where children should be in first term of year 1, based on the idea that most children should be hitting phase 3 by the end of Reception.

Phase 4 L&S should be taught in reception (but obviously it depends if children spend a full year or only a term in YR) Personally I'm unsure why they made a phase 4 as it is simply blending longer words (ccvc & cvcc)

I will put a message in the book as suggested asking when he will be taught the graphemes (ea and ou)that appear in his reading books on the level that he is on - esp if Mrz has said that he should have done phase 4 in reception (he was in for the whole year and is in a mixed y1/y2 class). L&S seems so different to the way that I learnt to read, I struggle to explain the oddities of the English language when he is reading to me!

Thanks

You might find these Alphabet Code charts useful, chivers:

www.phonicsinternational.com/unit1_pdfs/The%20_Alphabetic%20_Code_phoneme_pictures_A4x4_chart.pdf

Thank you so much Maverick!!