When starting Phase 3 Phonics of the DFE’s Letters and Sounds programme, children should already be confident segmenting and blending some words using the 19 sounds from Phase 2 Phonics (see our Phase 2 Activity Pack)

In Phase 3, the following 25 new graphemes are introduced individually:

• –  j,v,w,x
• –  y,z,zz,qu
• –  ch, sh, th, ng (consonant digraphs)
• –  ai, ee, igh, oa, oo, ar, or ur, ow, oi, ear air, ure, er (voweldigraphs)
  The following tricky words are also introduced in Phase 3: He, she, we, me, be, was, you, they, all, are, my and her.In Phase 4 Phonics of the DFE’s Letters and Sounds programme, children will keep practising the graphemes from Phase 1, 2 and 3 but also practise spelling, reading CVCC words (consonant, vowel, consonant, consonant words) such as ‘nest’ and ‘belt’. They will also practise reading and writing sentences and learn more tricky words such as: said, have, like, so, do, some, come, were, there, little, one, when, out and what.

Download my Phase 3 and 4 Activity Pack suitable for reception/year 1 level children here. Use the activities in this booklet to help your child practise their phase 3 and phase 4 phonics.