KS1 - Developing Phonics

In Key Stage 1, pupils continue to build on the phonics knowledge developed in Reception. Teaching begins by revisiting and securing The Basics 2 & 3, ensuring pupils are confident recognising the 44 sounds of the English language and applying these when blending for reading and segmenting for spelling.

The Basics 4

Pupils then progress to The Basics 4, where they move beyond simple three-sound words and learn to hear, read and spell words containing four, five and six sounds.

A key focus is reading and spelling words containing adjacent consonants, where two or more consonant sounds appear next to each other, such as frog, clap, string and crisp. Pupils learn to hear each individual sound within these more complex words rather than treating adjacent consonants as one sound.

Pupils continue to practise blending, segmenting, reading decodable texts and learning new tricky words as their confidence grows.

Choose to Use

Once pupils have secured the Basics, they move into the Higher Levels of Phonics and begin Choose to Use.

Pupils learn that there can be more than one way to spell the same sound. For example, the /ai/ sound can be written in different ways:

• rain – ai
• play – ay
• cake – a_e

Pupils explore these alternative spellings and learn to recognise which spelling they need to choose to use in different words. This supports their transition from early phonetic spelling towards increasingly accurate and independent spelling.

Switch it Spell Sounds

Pupils also learn Switch it Spell Sounds, where they discover that the same spelling can represent different sounds in different words.

For example:

• ow – cow / snow
• ie – pie / chief
• ea – bread / dream
• a – apple / angel
• o – frog / old
• ch – children / chorus

Pupils learn that if the sound they first try does not make a recognisable word, they can ‘switch it’ and try another sound. This helps them become more flexible when tackling unfamiliar words and supports increasingly fluent and confident reading.