Phonics videos
Click the following link to access videos tutorial explanations providing information about phonics. Please watch them for information about what phonics is, how to enunciate the sounds, and to find out how phonics is taught at CTK.
Phonics and reading page
Click here to access the curriculum page about phonics and reading
Year 1 Phonics and Spellings
Phonics
Year 1 phonics will begin by recapping phase 4 phonics.
The majority of phonics taught in Year 1 will be phase 5.
See the videos below for how the say the phonic sounds.
HOW TO PRONOUNCE THE PHONIC SOUNDS
Enunciation of phase 2 sounds
Enunciation of phase 3 sounds
PHASE 3 DIGRAPHS
PHASE 5 SOUNDS
PHASE 5 SOUNDS WITH RHYMES
The following documents are advice for helping your child to learn to read and write.
How to help your child read using phonics
How to help you child learn to read
To find out more information about blending and segmenting for reading and writing click here.
Phonics screening check
The phonics screening check assesses children on how well they can decode certain words. Decoding means sounding out an unfamiliar written word. To do this, children will need to be able to recognise letters and the sounds that they represent. This is an important part of achieving reading fluency! This check usually takes place in June of the Year 1 school year.
For more information about the phonics screening check click here.
Below are the some previous phonics screening tests.
Click here for the phonics screening test 2019
Click here for the phonics screening test 2018
Click here for the phonics screening test 2017
Click here for the phonics screening test 2016
Click here for the phonics screening test 2015
Spellings
Spelling folders will be sent home every Friday. The spellings should be learnt at home throughout the week for the test on the following Friday. Ideas for how to help learn spellings can be found below on this page.
Spelling folders will need to be handed back in every Friday. The spellings to learn for each week for Autumn 1 have been added below. Click on the links the see the spellings. (Hand in Friday – back out the same Friday).
Click on the following links to find ideas to help learn spellings.
More ideas for learning spellings
Spellings for Spring 2
With the phase 5 spellings I will also ask the children to spell 2 words that they have not been given to learn. These words will contain the spelling sounds for that week. The children will have to use and apply their phonics skills to spell these words independently. The extra spellings will be on weeks when there are only 8 spellings to learn.
Spellings for Spring 2 2025
Spellings given out on 28th March – ee alternative spellings – leaf, theme, chief, began, delay, cleaner, eve, brief, donkey, turkey
Spellings given out on 4th April – oo alternative spellings - grew, threw, prune, June, glue, blew, crew, rule, clue, untrue
Phase 3 spellings (Mrs. Canty's group) Spring 2 2025
Spellings given out on 28th March – oi – boil, join, coin, soil, foil
Spellings given out on 4th April – er - fern, her, herb, term, kerb
Phase 2 words (Mrs. Sudall's group) Spring 2 2025
Spellings given out on 28th March – hat, jet, dip, fog, gum
Spellings given out on 4th April – tan , peg, nip, log, mum
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Spellings for Summer 1 2025
The children have learnt the phase 5 sounds and now they are applying this knowledge to reading and writing. Year 1 children carry out a phonics screening check in June and this assesses children on how well they can decode real and nonsense words, using their phonics knowledge. During summer 1 the children will be set phonics homework instead of learning spellings. This homework will help them prepare for the phonics screening check. Each week the children will be given some real and nonsense words. Their homework is to read these words and work out if they are real words or nonsense words. The words will be given out each Friday and should be returned to school, in the spelling folder, on the following Friday. If you have any questions regarding this homework, please see a member of the Year 1 team.
Phase 2 words (Mrs. Sudall's group) Summer 1 2025
Spellings given out on 25th April – bat, beg, sit, cod, rug
Spellings given out on 2nd May – cap, get, tig, hot, tug
Spellings given out on 9th May – fan, Ken, rim, mop, but
Spellings given out on 16th May – rag, let, zip, pop, gun
Spelling given out on 23rd May – this week we will ask the children to apply their knowledge and spell cvc words by independently.
Handwriting in Year 1
At Christ the King, we follow the Red Rose Letters and Sounds Programme, providing a synthetic approach to the teaching of phonics, from Foundation Stage, through KS1 and into KS2 if appropriate.
As soon as our children enter our Foundation Stage (EYFS), provision is carefully planned to support our children to further develop and strengthen their fine motor skills required for writing. This includes lots of activities to get children using their pincer grip. This includes using tweezers, screws and bolts, malleable materials (playdough), threading, cutting and sticking tasks.
As the children begin to form letters during the Foundation Stage, they are taught to form each letter (grapheme) using the letter formation from Red Rose Letters and Sounds. This is further developed in Year 1, where the children aim to form all letters in a print style.
It is recommended that when teaching letter formation, a phrase is used in order to embed the directionality. Adults who teach letter formation are encouraged to use the same approach as children learn effectively through repetition. The letter formation used at Christ the King can be seen below.