Phase 3 - introducing digraphs

The purpose of Phase 3 is to teach another 25 graphemes, most of them comprising two letters (e.g. oa), so the children can represent phonemes (sounds) by a grapheme (letters). 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, learn to read some more tricky words and begin to spell some tricky words.

Phase 3 sounds 

j

v

w

x

y

z

zz

qu

ch

sh

th

ng

ai

ee

igh

oa

oo

ar

or

ur

ow

oi

ear

air

ure

er

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Phase 3 tricky words to read

he

she

we

me

be

was

my

you

her

they

all

are

 

Phase 3 tricky words to spell

I

to

the

go

no

 

By the end of Phase 3 children should: 

  • give the sound when shown all Phase 2 and Phase 3 graphemes.
  • be able to blend and read CVC words (e.g. single-syllable words consisting of Phase 2 and Phase 3 graphemes, such as ‘fish’ or ‘goat’.)
  • be able to segment and make a phonemically plausible attempt at spelling words using Phase 2 and Phase 3 graphemes, such as ‘b-oa-t.’