Phonics scope and sequence

Reading and viewing content descriptors are: 

Encounter words and writing within the environment and respond to spoken words in familiar environments (VCELA006)

Explore the concept of difference through matching letters, images, shapes and familiar words and sounds (VCELA041)

Explore similarities and differences between letters by shape and size and match some letters with their name or sound (VCELA076)

Know that a letter can be the same but look different, including capital and lower-case letters, and match some letters with their sound and name (VCELA111)

• For example:
• recognise that writing represents words, such as a student’s name
• identify the initial letter in a student’s name
• count the number of letters in a student’s name, explore the size and shape of a student’s name
• match both upper and lower-case letters from a student’s name with environmental text
• match some sounds to letters in a student’s name.

React to preferred sounds (VCELA007)

Reproduce sounds associated with familiar objects and names (VCELA042)

Recognise different sounds and their connection to a word or image (VCELA077)

Identify and make sounds associated with the beginning letter of words or images (VCELA112)

• For example:
• use word play, nursery rhymes and songs. Encourage students to join in on repetitive sections 
• read texts that contain familiar animals and objects. During the reading, model and encourage students to reproduce relevant corresponding sounds  
• provide opportunities for directed play where students can see, hear, use and articulate words about familiar objects/animals/people.

Writing content descriptors are:

Experience people writing, speaking and communicating using various modes (VCELA017)

Reproduce speech sounds to communicate basic wants and use images and objects to express their wants and ideas (VCELA052 )

Use spoken words, sign or Augmentative Alternative Communication System to communicate and understand that images can be used to write and express ideas (VCELA087 )

Use, communicate or articulate high-frequency words and reproduce familiar sounds and their letters (VCELA122 )

• For example: 
• use pictures to orally label objects and to form parts of signs in the classroom
• read picture story books and enlarged texts, locating familiar letters in the text
• use sensory materials to make letters (for example, plasticine, shaving cream, finger painting, chalk)
• sort letters into similar groups (for example, same size, those with sticks, those with tails, those with curves)
• refer to high-frequency words written on cards and use the cards to help identify and locate these words in the environmental print of the classroom.

React to familiar voices and preferred sounds (VCELA018 )

Recognise different sounds and words and their connection to objects and people (VCELA053 )

Know the beginning sounds (onset) of familiar words (VCELA088 )

Identify the onset of familiar words and some words that have the same rime (VCELA123 )

• For example: 
• play games such as: I spy with my little eye something beginning with a particular sound
• model and share tongue twisters
• speak, share and write sentences containing alliteration. Encourage students to contribute to sentence making
• ask students to find another student in their class with the same initial sound in their name.

Speaking and Listening content descriptors are:

Encounter words being isolated into onset and rime (VCELA029)

Connect sounds and words and match them to objects (VCELA063)

Recognise the beginning sounds of familiar words (VCELA098)

Identify the sounds within familiar words (VCELA133)

• For example: 
• ask students to sort familiar objects or images into groups with the same initial sound
• use clapping sticks or drums to clap out the number of syllables in a familiar word. Start with student names
• using magnetic letters, break familiar one syllable words into onset and rime. Make real and pseudo words by changing onsets (see onset-rime segmentation)
• use counters to represent the number of sounds in a word (start with one syllable words). Students say the word slowly, listen to the sounds and match the sounds to the counters.

Respond to different sounds and words used in everyday experiences (VCELA028)

Copy a sound (VCELA064)

Identify the initial sound of a single syllable word (VCELA099)

Blend sounds to produce familiar single syllable words and identify words that have the same rime (VCELA134)

• For example: 
• ask students to find objects in the classroom that begin with a particular sound
• model and encourage students to blend sounds into words. Start with familiar one syllable words 
• build word families that contain the same rime (for example, hen, den, ten, then, when). Record and display these in the classroom.

Some examples of pre-Foundation phonological awareness and phonics lesson plans and videos can be found here: 

• Phonological awareness
• Phonics
• Literacy experience plan: Over in the meadow
• Phonological awareness through rhyme and stories (video)
• Literacy experience plan: Bee bee bumble bee
• The sounds in my name
• Clay letters: Fine motor and phonics (video)

Foundation phonics scope

Reading and Viewing content descriptors are:

Recognise all upper- and lower-case letters and the most common sound that each letter represents (VCELA146)

• For example:  
• Recognise the most common sound made by each letter and their symbol (phoneme to grapheme). There is no fixed or set sequence to follow (Hornsby & Wilson, 2011, p.85) but here are two alternatives:
1. Phoneme: /m/, /b/, /l/, /t/, /g/, /h/, /s/, /k/, /v/, /z/, /p/, /j/, /n/, /d/, /r/, /y/, /f/, /w/ Vowel phoneme (short): /a/, /e/, /i/ /o/, /u/ Digraph: /sh/, /ch/, th/th voiced and unvoiced (Hill, 2015, p. 275)Digraph: /sh/, /ch/, th/th voiced and unvoiced (Hill, 2015, p. 275)
2. Stretchable consonants: /f/, /l/, /m/, /n/, /r/, /s/, /v/, /z/ Plosive consonants: /b/, /d/, /j/, /k/, /p/, /t/ Initial consonants: /h/, /w/, /y/, /c/, /g/, q= /k/ + /w/ Short vowels taught in rime -at, -et, -ip, -ot, -un (Hornsby & Wilson, 2011, pp. 87-101)

Blend sounds associated with letters when reading consonant-vowel-consonant words (VCELA147)

• For example:  
• blend one syllable words: c-a-t, p-e-g and apply this knowledge when reading.

Writing content descriptors are:

Understand that spoken sounds and words can be written and know how to write some high frequency words and other familiar words including their name (VCELA157)

• For example:  
• Write consonant-vowel-consonant words by segmenting the sounds. Listen to the sounds heard in the word and then write letters to represent those sounds. (See Phonological awareness and early writing)
• Teach the spelling of high frequency words (e.g. the, to, go, I, and, look, here). Examination of students’ writing provides easy access to which words to teach (Hill, 2015, p. 189). Refer to word lists such as Oxford Word List, High Frequency, M100 words as a guide.

Know how to use onset and rime to spell words where sounds map more directly onto letters (VCELA158)

• For example:  
• Start with words from an authentic source and build word families using magnetic letters, word slides or onset/rime cards (hop: h-op, p-op, c-op, m-op, sh-op, ch-op, st-op)
• Begin with single vowel and consonant rimes such as: -ad, -an, -am, -ap, -at, -en, -et, -in, -ip, -it, -op, -ot, -ug, -un, -um (Hornsby & Wilson, 2011, p.102). (See onset-rime segmentation  and Phonological Awareness Onset-rime video)

Speaking and Listening content descriptors are:

Identify rhyming words, alliteration patterns, syllables and some sounds (phonemes) in spoken words (VCELA168)

• For example:  
• Rhyming words-identify through singing songs, rhymes and stories containing rhyme. Students generate another word that rhymes with a given word ( for example, blue, two - zoo) (See Rhyme Awareness and Production and Rhyming words video)
• Alliteration patterns - Make and say tongue twisters that start with a given letter, read stories that contain alliteration (See Literacy GlossaryandAlliteration lesson)
• Syllables - can identify syllables in spoken words including student name (See Syllable Awareness and series of syllable lessons)
• Identify some phonemes in spoken words and manipulate the sounds. For example, what happens when you swap the /d/ in ‘dig’ with a /b/ = ‘big’ (See Deleting and manipulating sounds)

Blend and segment onset and rime in single syllable words and isolate, blend and segment phonemes in single syllable words (First consonant, last consonant sound, middle vowel sound) (VCELA169)

• For example:  
• Blend and segment onset and rime - Orally build word families (h-op, p-op, c-op, m-op, sh-op, ch-op, st-op). Start with single vowel and consonant rimes such as: -ad, -an, -am, -ap, -at, -en, -et, -in, -ip, -it, -op, -ot, -ug, -un, -um (Hornsby & Wilson, 2011, p.102).(See onset-rime segmentation  and Phonological Awareness Onset-rime video)
• Isolate, blend and segment phonemes in single syllable words - Count the phonemes in two and three letter words, identify the first and last sound in words, isolate sounds in words to segment (cup= c-u-p) and blend sounds (sh-i-p=ship) to make single syllable words (See Blending sounds into words, Segmenting words into sounds and F-2 Spelling unit).

Level 1 phonics scope

Reading and Viewing content descriptors are:

Recognise short vowels, common long vowels and consonant digraphs, and consonant blends (VCELA181)

• For example:
• Short vowels - Vowel sounds are usually short when they appear in one-syllable words. A vowel inside a rime has a consistent sound.
• Investigate and decode words which contain long vowel sounds: begin with split digraphs (such as a-e = cake, e-e = these, i-e = vine, o-e = hope, u-e = cute). Follow with common vowel digraphs making a long vowel sound: (such as ai, ay, ee, ea, oa)
• Consonant digraphs. Teach: 'sh'- ship, wish, 'ch'- chop and much, unvoiced 'th'- thin and with, voiced 'th'- then, feather, 'ph'-phone, elephant, graph, 'ck'- black, 'wh'- what, 'ng'- king, 'qu'- queen (included here because 'q' always appears with 'u' after it). (Hill, 2021, p.275) See Phonics lesson: Consonant digraphs.
• Consonant blends. Begin with 2 letter initial consonant blends - bl, br, cl, cr, dr, fl, fr, gl, gr, pl, lr, sc, sk, sl, sm, sn, sp, st, tr, tw (Hill, 2021, p. 274)  See Phonics lesson: Consonant blends 

Understand how to spell one and two syllable words with common letter patterns (VCELA182)

• For example:
• Investigate words with common consonant blends (bl, br, cl, cr, dr, fl, fr, gl, gr, pl, lr, sc, sk, sl, sm, sn, sp, st, tr, tw) and vowel sounds (a-e, e-e, i-e, o-e, u-e, ai, ay, ee, ea, oa) such as tree, star, be.gin, tea.cher
• Learn an increasing number of high frequency words with regular (and, am, can, get, his, this, up) and irregular spelling (after, all, come, here, my, of, said, saw, some, the, they, was, were, what, when, you). Refer to word lists such as: Oxford Word List, High Frequency, M100 words as a guide.

Understand that a letter can represent more than one sound, and that a syllable must contain a vowel sound (VCELA183)

• For example:
• Students can give examples of how a grapheme can make more than one phoneme (for example 'u' in 'cut', 'put', 'use' and 'a' in 'cat', 'father', 'any')
• Decodes single-syllable words with common long vowels. See Syllabification video and Level 1 Syllable Lesson that supports the video.

Writing content descriptors are:

Recognise and know how to use simple grammatical morphemes in word families (VCELA191)

• For example:
• Building word families (for example 'play', 'plays', 'playing', 'played', 'playground')
• Reads and writes one and two syllable words with common suffixes (for example, walk, walked, walks, walking) See Word Morphology

Understand how to use visual memory to write high-frequency words, and that some high-frequency words have regular and irregular spelling components (VCELA184)

• For example:
• Students use strategies such as look-say-cover-write-check to learn regular (such as and, am, can, get, his, this, up) and irregular spelling (such as after, all, come, here, my, of, said, saw, some, the, they, was, were, what, when, you) of high frequency words. Refer to word lists such as: Oxford Word List, High Frequency, M100 words as a guide.

Speaking and listening content descriptors are:

Identify the separate phonemes in consonant blends or clusters at the beginning and ends of syllables (VCELA203)

• For example:
• Students can identify the consonant blends at the beginning (such as bl, br, cl, cr, dr, fl, fr, gl, gr, pl, lr, sc, sk, sl, sm, sn, sp, st, tr, tw)  or ending (such as ft, ld, lk, lp, lt, mp, nd, ng, nk, nt, py, ry, sk, sp, st, ty) of syllables and then the individual phonemes that make up the blend (for example frog = 'fr' = f-r or jump='mp' = m-p) (Hill, 2021, p.274).

Manipulate phonemes by addition, deletion and substitution of initial, medial and final phonemes to generate new words (VCELA204)

• For example:
• Addition of phonemes: (adding /b/ to 'in' to make = 'bin' or /m/ to 'far' to make = 'farm'
• Deletion of phonemes: (deleting /s/ from swag to make = 'wag' or deleting /b/ from brat to make = 'rat'
• Substitution of initial, medial or final phonemes (substituting /p/ for /g/ in get = 'pet', substituting /o/ for /e/ in pet = pot, substituting /d/ for /t/ in pot ='pod') See Deleting and manipulating sounds in the Literacy Teaching Toolkit.

Level 2 phonics scope

Reading and viewing content descriptors are:

Learn some generalisations for adding suffixes to words (VCELA217). See Literacy Glossary

• For example:
• Investigate and teach the way words change when suffixes are added (-ing, -ed, -er, -est, -ful, -ly)
• add ‘ed’ or ‘ing’ to verb stem e.g. talk → talked, talking
• drop the final 'e' when adding 'ing' e.g. hope →hoping
• if the verb stem ends in ‘e’, just add a ‘d’ e.g. use → used, hope →hoped
• double the last consonant if there is a short vowel before it and then add ‘ed’ or ‘ing’ e.g. plan →planned, planning, hop →hopped, hopping
• if the verbs ends in y, change the 'y' to an 'i' and add 'ed' e.g. worry → worried (Derewianka, 2022, p. 24).
  
• final consonants are not doubled before adding a suffix beginning with a consonant e.g. wonder + ful = wonderful, quick + ly =quickly

Recognise most letter-sound matches including silent letters, trigraphs, vowel digraphs and common long vowels, and understand that a sound can be represented by various letter combinations (VCELA218) 

• For example:
• Silent letters - students recognise and read words with silent letters e.g. knife, castle, write. Initial silent letters (for example g-gnome, k-knew, p-psychology, w-wrap), medial silent letters (for example h-ghost, l-could, t-castle, w-two) and final silent letters (such as b-thumb) (Hornsby & Wilson, 2011, p.193). See Phonic Lesson-Using a traditional tale to teach phonic elements
• Trigraphs - a group of three letters that are associated with one sound, for example, ‘eau’ in ‘plateau’. Teach ‘ear’ as in ‘wear’, ‘tch’ as in ‘catch’, ‘ear’ as in ‘fear’, ‘ure’ as in ‘sure’
• Vowel digraphs and common long vowels: Revise (a-e, ai, ay, e-e, ee, ea, i-e, oa, o-e, u-e) Then teach: (ie, y, oe, ow, oo, ue) followed by: (ou, oy, oi, au)
• Teach R-Controlled Vowels: ar, er, ir, or, ur

Writing content descriptors are:

Understand how to use digraphs, long vowels, blends, silent letters and syllabification to spell simple words including compound words (VCELA226)

• For example:
• Students can write words containing consonant digraphs (such as 'sh', 'ch', 'th', 'ph', 'wh', 'ck', 'ng', 'qu') and vowel digraphs and long vowels (such as a-e, ai, au, ay, e-e, ee, ea, i-e, ie, oa, oe, o-e, oi, oo, ou, ow, oy, u-e, ue, y) See Phonics lesson: Consonant digraphs 
• Students can write words with 2 letter See Level 1 Phonics Scope and 3 letter consonant blends (scr-, shr-, spl-, spr-, str-) See Phonics lesson: Consonant digraphs 
• Students can write words with silent letters: Initial silent letters (for example g-gnome, k-knew, p-psychology, w-wrap), medial silent letters (for example h-ghost, l-could, t-castle, w-two) and final silent letters (such as b-thumb) (Hornsby & Wilson, 2011, p.193).
• Syllables: Students can break words into syllables to hear the phonemes (e.g. button= but.ton = b-u-t. t-o-n) See Syllabification video and Level 1 Syllable Lesson that supports the video
• Compound words: See Word Morphology-Compound words 

Use visual memory to write high-frequency words and words where spelling is not predictable from the sounds (VCELA227)

• For example:
• Can use visual memory strategies such as: look-say-cover-write-check, knowledge of letter patterns, word shape and possible letter combinations to write high frequency sight words. Read and write all 100 high frequency words. Refer to word lists such as: Oxford Word List, High Frequency, M100 words as a guide.

Speaking and listening content descriptors are:

Manipulate more complex sounds in spoken words through knowledge of blending and segmenting sounds, phoneme deletion and substitution (VCELA238)

• For example:
• Blend and segment more complex sounds when saying words, for example 'squint' and 'watch'. Include words with 2 letter blends - See Level 1 Phonics Scope and 3 letter blends (scr-, shr-, spl-, spr-, str- in the initial and final position of a word.
• Deletion of phonemes in more complex words: (for example deleting 'e' from 'bathe' = bath, deleting the 'i' from paint = pant)
• Substitution of initial, medial or final phonemes in more complex words (substituting 'str' for 'th' in thing = 'string', substituting 'ea' for 'oa' in boat = 'beat', substituting '-tch' for 'th' in with = 'witch' See Deleting and manipulating sounds

Identify all Standard Australian English phonemes, including short and long vowels, separate sounds in clusters (VCELA239) 

• For example:
• Listening for and recognising different sounds in words during shared reading and read alouds including short vowels (such as 'a' as in can), long vowels (such as 'o' as in pony) and separate sounds in letter clusters (such as 's-t-r' in strap)
• The 20 vowel and 24 consonant phonemes make up the 44 phonemes of English. Each phoneme may have multiple spellings (graphemes) and a sample are listed here: see The English Spelling System: 44 sounds of English 
• Short Vowels – ‘a’ in cat, ‘e’ in leg, ‘I’ in sit, ‘o’ in top, ‘u’ in rub and ‘oo’/‘u’ in book and put
• Long Vowels - 'a’ ape, bait, bathe, day; 'e' in eat, see, scene; 'i' in ice, light, buy, hide; 'o' in own, coat, toe, hope, 'u' in use, cute, few  (Hornsby & Wilson, 2021, p. 276)
• 3 R-Controlled vowels – ‘ar’ in car, giraffe, half, ‘er’/‘ir’/‘ur’ in her, were, bird, hurt or in cork, more, sure, saw, war (Hill, 2021, p. 138)
• 6 other vowels - ‘ow’/‘ou’ in cow and out, ‘oy’/‘oi’ in boy and void, ‘eer’/‘ear’ in deer and near, ‘air’/‘ere’ in hair and there, ‘our’ in tour
• 1 Unstressed Vowel - schwa in about, broken, pencil, parrot, album (Hill, 2021, p. 139)
• 24 Consonants - p in pet, b in bet, t in tip, d in dip, k/c in kite/cap, m in met, n in net, ng in sing, f in fan and photo, v in van, th in think (voiceless /th/), th in this (voiced /t/), s in Sue, dress and cent, z in zoo, h in hat, j in jump and giant, w in wet, r in rat, y in yak, l in leg, sh in ship, zh in treasure and beige, ch in chain and creature 
• Additional Consonant Sounds - x = k + s as in box, qu = k + w as in quit

References

Derewianka, B. (2022). A new Grammar Companion for teachers. Primary English Teaching Association Australia.

Ehri, L. C. (2022). What teachers need to know and do to teach letter–sounds, phonemic awareness, word reading, and phonics. The Reading Teacher, 76(1), 53-61.

Hill, S. (2015). Developing early literacy: Assessment and teaching (2nd ed.) South Yarra, Australia: Eleanor Curtain Publishing.

Hornsby, D. & Wilson, L. (2011). Teaching phonics in context. Port Melbourne: Pearson Australia.