Phonics in Year 1

Each Year 1 phonics lesson follows our consistent and easy-to-use structure:

1. Review & Teach – Recap and introduce new learning.
2. Hook – Engage your pupils with a fun, meaningful introduction.
3. Practice & Apply – Reinforce skills through reading and writing.
4. Plenary – Reflect and review understanding.
5. High-Frequency Words – Teach and apply Year 1 HFWs and Common Exception Words (CEWs).

Skills Focus

Blending to read and segmenting to spell at word and sentence level, with increasing fluency and confidence.

Term 1

Term 1 teaches the National Curriculum Year 1 graphemes (tch, ve, ay, oy, a-e, e-e, i-e, o-e, u-e, u-e, ea, ea, ir, oe, ou, ow) plus revision of Reception digraphs and trigraphs. Skills focus on blending and segmenting of decodable words alongside the reading and spelling of the Year 1 CEWs and the first 100 HFWs. Suffixes ed, s/es, ing, er and est (with no change to the root word) are also introduced in specific spelling lessons and then reinforced in grapheme lessons. Progression is cumulative with each lesson focusing only on decodable words that use graphemes that have been taught so far.

Term 2

Term 2 teaches the remaining National Curriculum Year 1 graphemes (ue, ew, ie, ore, aw, au ear, are, y, ph, wh, e, o) plus revision of Reception digraphs and trigraphs. Skills focus on blending and segmenting of decodable words alongside the reading and spelling of the next 200 HFWs. The prefix ‘un’ together with the spelling rule ‘k before y, i, e’ are also introduced in specific spelling lessons and then reinforced in grapheme lessons. Progression is cumulative with each lesson focusing only on decodable words that use graphemes that have been taught so far. All National Curriculum Year 1 graphemes are taught by week 9 of this term. At this point, revision lessons commence in preparation for the Phonics Screening Check.

Term 3

Term 3 begins with the preparation for the Year 1 Phonics Screening Check, using real and nonsense word reading activities and a mock phonics screen. The remainder of the term focuses on the revision of the Year 1 graphemes plus Year 1 CEWs and the first 100 HFWs. Spelling rules are recapped in the last 3 weeks alongside compound words, numbers, contractions, days, months and colours. In preparation for the transition to Year 2. 

If you click on the link here, you will be able to watch a video to how to pronounce the pure speech sounds in Year 1.  

At the bottom of the page are links to documents for Phonics in Year 1. 

Files to Download