This term we will begin phase 4 of our phonics learning.
Phase 4 relates to the blending of adjacent consonants at the beginning and end of simple words where the single letter sounds are blended together in a left to right order.
Examples of the adjacent consonants found at the beginning of English words are ‘bl.., cl.., fl.., gl.., pl.., sl.., br.., dr.., fr.., gr.., pr.., tr.., sk.., sm.., sn.., sp.., st.., sw.., tw..’ in words like ‘blob, clap, flag, glad, plop, slip, bran, drip, frog, grab, pram, tram, skip, smell, snip, stop, swim, twig’. These are known as ccvc (consonant, consonant, vowel, consonant) words.
Examples of adjacent consonants found at the end of English words are ‘..mp, ..nd, ..nk, ..nt, ..st, ..ft, ..ld, ..lp, ..lt, ..sk’ in words like ‘jump, hand, bank, tent, lost, left, held, help, belt, ask’. These are known as cvcc words.
There are also some combinations of three adjacent consonants such as ‘spr.., str.., spl..’ as found in the words ‘spring, street, split’.
Children will learn to blend and segment these words in just the same way as cvc words.
Remember that some adjacent consonants e.g. ‘ch, sh, th‘ are not blended together in the above manner. They are the spellings of distinct English sounds (phonemes) in their own right, and their sound is different to the sounds of the two separate letters.
As always please ask about any aspect of your child’s learning.