English / Foundation / Language / Phonics and word knowledge

Curriculum content descriptions

Understand how to use knowledge of letters and sounds including onset and rime to spell words (ACELA1438)

Elaborations
  • recognising the most common sound made by each letter of the alphabet, including consonants and short vowel sounds, for example ‘p-op’
  • breaking words into onset and rime, noticing words that share the same pattern, for example ‘p-at’, ‘b-at’
  • breaking words into onset and rime to learn how to spell words that share the same pattern, for example ‘p-at’, ‘b-at’, ‘t-all’ and ‘f-all’
  • building word families using onset and rime, for example ‘h-ot’, ‘g-ot’, ‘n-ot’, ‘sh-ot’
General capabilities
  • Literacy Literacy
ScOT terms

Spelling,  Syllables

Interactive

Letter planet: s, c, b

Help a stranded space traveller return home by filling three fuel tanks with words that have the same letter. Select words that begin with 's', 'c' or 'b'. Read and listen to model words. Select similar words with the same starting letter and place them in the fuel tank. Then construct sentences by putting words in the ...

Interactive

Letter planet: a, e, o

Help a stranded space traveller return home by filling three fuel tanks with words that have the same letter. Select words with 'a', 'e' or 'o' in them. Read and listen to model words. Select similar words with the same vowel and place them in the fuel tank. Then construct sentences by putting words in the appropriate order. ...

Interactive

Little Stars - Word Wizard - iTunes app

Learn and practise spelling and word recognition, on your own or with a partner, in this space-themed game. Answer questions to move your rocket ship and earn stickers on the way. Includes over 150 CVC words. Free when reviewed 6/6/15.

Online

TrackSAFE Education Primary School Resources: Foundation, Year 1 and Year 2 English

This unit of work focuses on developing student understanding of the importance of being track safe and the key message 'Stop, Look, Listen, Think'. It builds students' familiarity with the vocabulary and key concepts related to rail safety and provides differentiated activities for writers at different stages of development ...

Video

English Year F with Leanne: Decoding unfamiliar words using onset and rime

In this lesson, you will learn how to decode unfamiliar words by breaking them up into onset (the starting sound) and rime (the ending of words). Leanne demonstrates how to build and read new words by changing the onset. She provides opportunities for you to have a go at home.

Interactive

Phonics Fun 4 - iTunes app

Learn letter sounds and rime as you tap pictures and hear letter sounds. Match the letters and sounds to the pictures. Covers 9 letter sounds (a, e, i, o, u, qu, sh, z, v), 5 rimes (ip, ot, x, at, un) in 75 words. Free when reviewed 6/6/15.

Online

Creating change as a literacy coach

This teacher resource describes how a literacy coach made a substantial difference to students' literacy achievements, teachers' involvement in literacy strategies and whole-school culture at Allendale East Area School in South Australia. Organised in nine sections: Summary; Target student group; Method; Results; Lessons ...

Interactive

SpellingCity - Google Play app

Learn and practise your spelling, grammar and vocabulary with 10 multimodal spelling games. Build customised word listsand test yourself on your spelling. SpellingCity is a companion app for the www.spellingcity.com website. Free when reviewed 7/6/15.

Interactive

SpellingCity - iTunes app

Learn and practise your spelling, grammar and vocabulary with 10 multimodal spelling games. Build customised word lists and test yourself on your spelling. SpellingCity is a companion app for the www.spellingcity.com website. Free when reviewed 7/6/15.

Downloadable

Phonics pair-game template

The pair games and activities in this document can be used as part of your systematic synthetic phonics program to encourage students to develop their phonics skills with peers during independent practice.

Text

Assessment and intervention for an SSP approach

This self-paced learning module outlines the specific areas of knowledge and skills that are assessed for a systematic synthetic phonics approach to teaching reading and spelling. It explains how this approach to assessment is helpful to identify student needs across the Response to Intervention framework. It contains a ...

Online

Spelling generalisations and SSP

This self-paced learning module outlines what makes English an opaque language and why it is valuable to teach students spelling generalisations. It explains how to support students to apply spelling generalsiations and how to incorporate them into your systematic synthetic phonics (SSP) lessons. The module contains two ...

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.

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

Steps to spelling accuracy infographic

This infographic highlights the knowledge and skill areas students need to develop for early spelling accuracy, and the key role of spelling generalisations in this development.

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.

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.

Text

Spelling generalisations

This document outlines spelling generalisations included in the Literacy Hub phonics progression and explains teaching points relating to each one that may be used to support instruction in your systematic, synthetic phonics aligned classroom.

Video

Demonstration of a phonics lesson

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

Online

Daily review example

This slide pack provides a sample daily review lesson which is a key component of teaching phonics using a systematic synthetic phonics (SSP) model that follows evidence-based research. It can be adapted to follow any phonics progression or lesson.