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Phonics​ ​

What Is Phonics?

Phonics is a way of teaching children to read and spell by helping them understand the links between letters (graphemes) and the sounds (phonemes) they make. In Year 2, children continue to build on the phonics knowledge they learned in Year 1, applying it more confidently when reading longer words and spelling more accurately.

Through phonics, children learn to:

  • Blend sounds together to read words (e.g., s – a – t becomes sat)
  • Segment words into sounds to help with spelling (e.g., ship becomes sh – i – p)
  • Recognise spelling patterns and common sound families
  • Read both decodable words and those that cannot be sounded out (known as tricky words)

A strong foundation in phonics helps children become confident and fluent readers, supporting their ability to understand and enjoy what they read.

To support your child with their phonics at home we have included some useful resources and links below:

  • Phonics Play Practise your phonics learning with these games
  • Alien word examples These nonsense words are letter sequences that follow regular phonetic rules and are pronounceable, but have no meaning
  • More alien words Alien words are often also called nonsense words or pseudo words, and are words made up of sounds a child has already been taught

Additional Resources

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