Children entering Phase 3 will know around 19 letters and be able to blend phonemes to read VC words and segment VC words to spell. While many children will be able to read and spell CVC words, they all should be able to blend and segment CVC words orally.The purpose of this phase is to teach the following 12 letter/sounds:

Phase 3a Letters and Sounds

j /j/, v /v/, w /w/, x /k-s/, y /y/, z /z/, zz /z/, qu /k-w/, sh /sh/ ch /ch/, th /voiced & unvoiced/, ng /ng/

Phase 3b Letter / Sounds

ai /ai/, ee /ee/, igh /igh/, oa /oa/, oi /oi/, oo /o-o/, oo /oo/, ow /ow/, ar /ar/, air /air/, ear /ear/, ur /ur/, or /or/, ure /ure/, er /schwa/

Children also continue to practise CVC blending and segmentation in this phase and will apply their knowledge of blending and segmenting to reading and spelling simple two-syllable words and captions. They will learn letter names during this phase, learn to read some more tricky words and also begin to learn to spell some of these words. It must always be remembered that phonics is the step up to word-recognition. Automatic reading of all words – decodable and tricky – is the ultimate goal.