English / Year 1 / Language / Phonics 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 (ACELA1459)

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

Phonics

Interactive

Syllabus bites: types of sentences

A web page resource with information, teacher guides and activities on types of sentences to support the Australian Curriculum in English K–10. It has detailed activities, links to resources and quizzes.

Video

Radio National: The 'H' wars

How do you pronounce the letter ‘h'? Why do you think there is more than one way to pronounce this letter? Watch this video to find out why some people may pronounce the letter ‘h' as 'aitch' as opposed to 'haitch'. If you'd like to learn more on this topic, visit this site.

Text

Phonics instructional model for reading and spelling

This documents includes information about a phonics instructional model for reading and spelling, it outlines the attributes of instruction, provides a lesson and review model, and a sample systematic synthetic phonics lesson that includes examples of skill application tasks.

Audio

Phonemes and graphemes daily review

This slide pack provides recorded pure sounds for each letter–sound correspondence in line with the Literacy Hub phonics progression. It is ideal for use within phonics instruction using a systematic synthetic phonics approach.

Text

Phonics progression

This evidence-aligned phonics progression includes a sequence of letter-sound correspondences and phonics skills for development across Foundation to year 2.

Video

Introduction to SSP - Module 4: features of a systematic synthetic phonics approach

This 23-minute professional learning video, presented by literacy expert Jocelyn Seamer, discusses the features of a systematic, synthetic approach to teaching phonics. It includes information on decodable texts, alphabetic code, and how to teach new sounds. The other videos in the series are; The research base of structured ...

Video

Introduction to SSP - Module 1: the research base of structured literacy

This 13-minute professional learning video, presented by literacy expert Jocelyn Seamer, introduces the Science of Reading and explains the implications this body of research has for teaching reading. You will learn about the evidence base that supports the Science of Reading, Sweller's cognitive load theory and Dehaene's ...

Downloadable

Phonics Check Student Materials

This resource contains the words for students to read when completing the Year 1 Phonics Check (a free assessment of students' decoding skills) in offline mode. Teachers can print this list and ask students to read from it.

Downloadable

Student practice sheet for the Phonics Check

This student practice sheet for the Year 1 Phonics Check (a free assessment of students' decoding skills) provides teachers with examples of the real words and the pseudo words similar to those included in the Check.

Downloadable

The Simple View of Reading and the year 1 Phonics Check

This document explains the Simple View of Reading. It gives teachers a framework to map student strengths and areas of need with the two key factors required for reading comprehension: word recognition (decoding) and language comprehension.

Downloadable

Year 1 Phonics Check and the Australian Curriculum

This document outlines how the types of words assessed in the Year 1 Phonics Check (a free 7-minute assessment to assess students' decoding skills across words of increasing complexity) align with descriptors in the Australian Curriculum V9 and with indicators of literacy development described in the National Literacy Learning ...

Downloadable

Year 1 Phonics Check Analysing and responding to results

This guide explains how to analyse data from the Year 1 Phonics Check, and how to use it to inform instruction. The Year 1 Phonics Check is a free, 7-minute assessment that assesses students' decoding skills across words of increasing complexity.

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.

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.

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 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 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 letter-sound correspondences ai and ay

This sample slideshow presents a ready-to-use phonics lesson to teach the spelling generalisation for the ai ay spelling pattern, with teacher notes indicating how to teach each part of the lesson.