English / Year 1 / Literacy / Phonic and word knowledge

Curriculum content descriptions

understand that a letter can represent more than one sound and that a syllable must contain a vowel sound (AC9E1LY12)

Elaborations
  • recognising that letters can have more than one sound; for example, the letter “u” in “cut”, “put”, “use” and the letter “a” in “cat”, “father”, “any”
  • recognising sounds that can be produced by different letters; for example, the “s” sound in “sat” and “cent”
General capabilities
  • Literacy Literacy
ScOT terms

Phonemes

Video

Teaching spelling generalisations: Eat bread - multiple sounds of ea

This short video (8 mins 18 seconds) explains how to teach the spelling generalisation known as eat bread, which examines the two most common sounds made by the digraph ea.

Video

Teaching spelling generalisations: Gentle Cindy - soft g and soft c

This video (11 mins 24 seconds) explains how to teach the spelling generalisation known as gentle Cindy, which explains when the letters g and c make their soft sounds, /j/ and /s/.

Video

Teaching spelling generalisations: Floss rule - ff, ll, ss or zz.

This short video (5 mins 32 seconds) explains how to teach the spelling generalisation known as the floss rule so that students learn when to use the letters ff, ll, ss and zz to represent the sounds /f/, /l/, /s/, and /z/.

Video

Teaching spelling generalisations: Sail away - ai/ay for long a sound

This video (12 mins 44 seconds) explains how to teach the spelling generalisation known as sail away so that students learn when to use the letters ai and ay to make the long a vowel sound in words.

Video

Year 1 Phonics Check: Responding to group analysis findings

This short video (8 minutes and 25 seconds) shows how to interpret data from the Year 1 Phonics Check’s group reports, and how to respond to student needs using the tiers of intervention model.

Video

Year 1 Phonics Check: Responding to analysis findings for individual student reports

This 18-minute video explains how to respond to analysis of individual student reports for the Year 1 Phonics Check.

Video

Year 1 Phonics Check: Analysing individual student reports

This video (14 minutes and 51 seconds) explains the components of an individual student report for the Year 1 Phonics Check.

Video

Year 1 Phonics Check: Understanding individual student reports

This short video (4 minutes and 35 seconds) explains the components of an individual student report for the Year 1 Phonics Check.

Downloadable

Year 1 Phonics Check: Administration guide

This guide provides detailed information for school leaders and teachers on what the Year 1 Phonics Check is (a free, 7-minute assessment that assesses students' decoding skills across words of increasing complexity). The guide contains information on delivery modes and key materials, administering the Check, recording ...

Video

Explicit instruction for phonics - an instructional model: coaching webinar questions

Literacy specialists Rebecca McEwan and Elaine Stanley present this question and answer session about using explicit instruction principles within your phonics lesson.

Video

Demonstration of a daily review

This video provides a demonstration of a phonics daily review using explicit instruction principles. It is presented by literacy specialists Elaine Stanley and Rebecca McEwan.

Downloadable

Phonics lesson student worksheet: Spelling generalisation for soft g and soft c

This worksheet is for independent student practice of concepts taught in the phonics lesson for the soft g and soft c sounds (sometimes known as the ‘Gentle Cindy’ rule).

Downloadable

Phonics lesson student worksheet: Spelling generalisation for ff ll ss zz

This worksheet is for independent student practice of concepts taught in the phonics lesson for the ff ll ss zz spelling pattern (sometimes known as the ‘floss’ rule).

Downloadable

Phonics lesson student worksheet: Spelling generalisation for letter-sound correspondences ai and ay

This worksheet is for independent student practice of concepts taught in the phonics lesson on the ai ay spelling pattern.

Downloadable

Phonics lesson slides: Spelling generalisation for soft g and soft c

This sample slideshow presents a ready-to-use phonics lesson to teach the spelling generalisation for the soft g and soft c sounds (sometimes known as the ‘Gentle Cindy’ rule), with teacher notes indicating how to teach each part of the lesson.

Text

Overview of assessment for phonics knowledge and skills

This document helps teachers create an assessment schedule that includes all the early phonics-related skills necessary for reading and spelling development from Foundation to Year 2.

Assessment

Progress monitoring tool template

This Word template assists teachers to create their own progress monitoring tools to align with a school's phonics progression.

Assessment

Progress monitoring tool Tracker Phases 21-24

This spreadsheet assists teachers to analyse the data collected in progress monitoring tools, to plan next steps for student learning. This file aligns with Phases 21-24 of the Literacy Hub phonics progression.

Video

Explicit instruction for phonics overview

This video provides an overview of a phonics instructional model for reading and spelling. It is presented by literacy specialists Elaine Stanley and Rebecca McEwan.

Downloadable

Phonics Check answer sheet

A downloadable answer sheet for the offline mode of the Year 1 Phonics Check (a free assessment of students' decoding skills).