Discrete teaching Phase 5: recognising
and using alternative ways of
pronouncing and spelling graphemes
Main purpose: To teach children to recognise and use alternative ways of pronouncing
and spelling the graphemes already taught.
Outcome: Children will use alternative ways of pronouncing and spelling the graphemes
corresponding to long vowel phonemes. Children will identify the constituent parts of
two- and three-syllable words and be able to read and spell phonically decodable twoand three-syllable words. They will recognise an increasing number of high frequency
words automatically. Phonic knowledge and skills will be applied as the prime approach
in reading and spelling when the words are unfamiliar and not completely decodable.
Typical duration: Securing reading and spelling will extend through Year 1.
Practitioners and teachers should use the exemplar in conjunction with the progression
and pace document and the Strand 5 objectives (which include the relevant Early
Learning Goals for the Foundation Stage objectives).
Sample session 1
Key components of phonic knowledge and skills for this phase are in bold.
Phase 5
Long vowel phonemes:
/ee/ (ee, ea, y, e), /ie/ (igh, y, ie, i-e, i), /oe/ (oa, ow, o-e, o),
/ae/ (ai, ay, a-e, a), /ue/ (oo, ew, ue, o), /oo/ (oo, ou, u),
/ow/ (ow, ou), /oi/ (oy, oi), /ar/ (ar, a), /au/ (ar, a), /ur/ (er, ir, ur),
/air/ (air, are, ear,), /ear/ (ear, eer, ere), /ure/ (ure, our).
Resources
Vowel Rap poster
Letter cards for ‘e’ and ‘ee’
Three labels, each with the name of something visible in the
classroom containing ‘ee’ (e.g. 'feet', 'green', ' three', 'wheel')
Reusable sticky pads
Puppet (the one who is learning to read)
Note: Word and sentence cards should not be on display until
after the main oral blending activity has been completed.
Make sure that any adult who is available to give additional help
for this session is fully briefed to keep children focused on the
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task and is able to intervene early or refer to the teacher any
children observed to have particular difficulties.
Daily direct teaching session (approximately 20 minutes for all children)
Revisit and review
recently and
previously learned
grapheme–
phoneme
correspondences
Vowel Rap
Teach
Explain to the children that they are going to read the Vowel Rap
again, but this time they are going to use the names of the letters
instead of the sounds. (They should already be familiar with many
letter names by this stage of the year.) Read the Vowel Rap
together in this way. You may want to call this ‘The Long Vowel
Rap’.
Reading focus
Attach the Vowel Rap poster to the whiteboard, ensuring that all
children can see it clearly. Ask the children to read it with you
(they should already be familiar with this from Phase 3). Explain
that these vowels are called ‘short vowels’ because they make a
short sound: /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, /u/. Get the children to say the sounds
with you, making them as short as possible.
Explain to the children that we call these ‘long vowels’
because they make a long sound: /ae/, /ee/, /ie/, /oe/, /ue/. Get
the children to say the long vowels with you, making them long
(e.g. /eeeeeee/).
Show the children the ‘e’ card and remind them that they already
know this letter makes an /e/ sound (the short vowel). Explain
that sometimes it makes an /ee/ sound as well (but not very
often). Show the children the ‘ee’ card and explain that this is one
way of writing down the long /ee/ sound. Teach the children an
easy way to help them read this digraph using the following
rhyme: ‘Two vowels out walking, the first one does the talking’
(point to the first letter of the digraph as you say the rhyme. As ‘e’
is the first vowel in the digraph ‘ee’, it makes the sound /ee/).
Repeat the rhyme a couple of times with the children. You can
show them how to ‘walk’ two fingers along their forearm to make
it multisensory.
Practise
Practise hearing long and short vowel sounds /ee/ and /e/.
Explain to the children that you are going to say a word and they
have to listen and decide whether that word has a long /ee/ or a
short /e/. If it has a long /ee/, they are going to move their hands
apart to show it is a long sound. If it has a short /e/, they are
going to keep their hands close together, palms facing each
other, in front of them.
Call out ‘bee’, making the /ee/ sound slightly longer than usual.
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Count down ‘3-2-1: show me’ and the children show their hand
signal to you. Segment the word all together, using fingers: /bee/. Confirm with the children that it was a long /ee/. Repeat,
saying the following words: 'bed', 'hen', 'pea', 'mean', 'pet', 'seat'.
Don’t have these words on show – at this point you are focusing
the children’s attention on the phonemes in each word, not how it
is spelt.
Apply their phonics
learning
Apply their phonic learning while reading.
Ask the children to work in pairs and reintroduce the puppet who
is learning to read. Explain to the children that the puppet has
been given some labels to put on things in the classroom, but it
needs help with the reading. Show the children the first label.
Blend and read the word together as a class. Ask the children
to point to where the label would go in the classroom. Show the
next label. This time get the children to blend and read the word
with their carpet partner. Count down ‘3-2-1: hands up’. Ask a few
pairs of children what they think the label says. Then blend and
read the word on the label as a class (this is the next teaching
part of the activity). Again, ask the children to point to where the
label should go. Repeat with the last label.
Sample session 2
Phase 5
Long vowel phonemes:
/ee/ (ee, ea, y, e), /ie/ (igh, y, ie, i-e, i), /oe/ (oa, ow, o-e, o),
/ae/ (ai, ay, a-e, a), /ue/ (oo, ew, ue, o), /oo/ (oo, ou, u),
/ow/ (ow, ou), /oi/ (oy, oi), /ar/ (ar, a), /au/ (ar, a), /ur/ (er, ir, ur),
/air/ (air, are, ear), /ear/ (ear, eer, ere ), /ure/ (ure, our).
Resources
Vowel Rap poster (see Early Literacy Support materials)
Letter cards for ‘ee’ and ‘ie’
Word cards (one word on each card): 'bee', 'keep', 'tree', 'tried',
'lied', 'see', 'fried'.
‘Silly question’ cards: 'Can a pie sleep?', 'Is a tree green?'
Note: Word and sentence cards should not be on display until after
the main oral blending activity has been completed.
Make sure that any adult who is available to give additional help for
this session, is fully briefed to keep children focused on the task
and is able to intervene early or refer to the teacher any children
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observed to have particular difficulties.
Daily discrete teaching session (approximately 20 minutes for all children)
Revisit and review
recently and
previously learned
grapheme–
phoneme
correspondences
Revisit and review recently and previously learned grapheme–
phoneme correspondences and the terms ‘short vowel’ and
‘long vowel’.
Teach
Teach new phoneme–grapheme correspondence and skill of
blending words containing ‘ee’ and ‘ie’.
reading focus
Attach the Vowel Rap poster to the whiteboard, ensuring that all
children can see it clearly. Ask the children if they can remember
what the ‘short vowels’ are (the way they used to say the Vowel
Rap), that is /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, /u/. Ask the children to tell you what the
‘long vowels’ are (the way they read the Vowel Rap yesterday), that
is /ae/, /ee/, /ie/, /oe/, /ue/. Get the children to read the Vowel Rap
with you, using long vowels. Afterwards, remind the children that ‘e’
does make an /ee/ sound, but not very often. Can they remember
the vowel digraph for /ee/ which they learned yesterday? Write ‘ee’
underneath ‘e’ on the second finger of the poster. Recite the rhyme
‘Two vowels out walking, the first one does the talking’, while
pointing at the ‘e’ at the beginning of the vowel digraph.
Show the children the ‘ie’ card and tell them to use the rhyme to
help them work out what sound this digraph makes. When the
children have put their hands up, take a few suggestions, then
point to the ‘i’ at the beginning of the digraph. Explain that ‘i’ is the
first letter, so the digraph makes an /ie/ sound. Write ‘ie’
underneath ‘i’ on the middle finger of the Vowel Rap poster.
Play ‘Sound buttons’, where children plant a sound button under
each phoneme. Use ‘seen’ to model the activity which would have
three sound buttons – only one for the long vowel phoneme. Then
play the game using the following words: 'tied', 'feel', 'sweet', 'lie'.
You could get the children to do an action as they say each
phoneme, for example, move an arm (this provides a multisensory
approach to blending). After a couple of words you could ask one
of the children to come up and put the sound buttons under the
next word. Try and use the words ‘digraph’ or ‘vowel digraph’
where appropriate when playing this game.
Practise
Practise the skill of blending (and segmenting) using words
containing ‘ee’ and ‘ie’.
Ask the children to find a partner and play a variation on ‘Phoneme
count’ – where children count the number of phonemes in a word.
Write the numbers 2, 3, 4 across the top of the whiteboard, as
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column headings. Hold up the word card ‘bee’. Get the children to
blend and read the word together (/b-ee/). Hide the word. Get the
children to segment ‘bee’, altogether, using their fingers (/b-ee/).
Countdown ‘3-2-1: show me’ and the children show you the
number of fingers, corresponding to the number of phonemes (two
in ‘bee’). Choose a child to come and stick the card in the correct
column on the whiteboard (the ‘2’ column). Repeat with the
following words, but now the children segment the word quietly with
their partner before showing you: 'keep' (3), 'tree' (3), 'tried' (4),
'lied' (3), 'see' (2), 'fried' (4).
Apply their phonics
learning
Keep the children with their carpet partners and play ‘Silly
questions’. Use the questions listed in resources (above), but use
thumbs up/down instead of yes/no cards. After the children have
shown thumbs up/down, get the whole class to read the ‘Silly
question’, stopping at the underlined words to blend and read them
(this is the teaching part of the activity). Agree on an answer to the
question. Repeat with the other ‘Silly question’.
Sample session 3
Phase 5
Long vowel phonemes:
/ee/ (ee, ea, y, e), /ie/ (igh, y, ie, i-e, i), /oe/ (oa, ow, o-e, o),
/ae/ (ai, ay, a-e, a), /ue/ (oo, ew, ue, o), /oo/ (oo, ou, u),
/ow/ (ow, ou), /oi/ (oy, oi), /ar/ (ar, a), /au/ (ar, a), /ur/ (er, ir, ur),
/air/ (air, are, ear), /ear/ (ear, eer, ere), /ure/ (ure, our).
Resources
Sock puppets – enough for one each (to include ‘ee’ and ‘ie’)
Washing line and pegs
Small box and two of the following objects (these must be able to
fit in the box): 'tie', 'pie', 'tree', 'seed', 'sheep', 'sweet'. Choose one
word containing ‘ee’ and one containing ‘ie’.
Daily discrete teaching session (approximately 20 minutes for all children)
Revisit and review
recently and
previously learned
grapheme–
phoneme
correspondences
Choose six or seven sock puppets. These must include ‘ie’ and
‘ee’ and any other grapheme–phoneme correspondences the
children need to practise (use your ongoing assessments to
identify these). Choose one sock and peg it on the line. As soon
as the peg is on (and not before), the children call out the sound
shown on it. Remove the sock and repeat with another sock.
Each sock can be put on the line more than once (especially if
the children are unsure of a particular sound).
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Teach
writing focus
Teach the skill of segmenting words with long vowels /ie/
and /ee/.
Get the children into carpet partners and play ‘Phoneme fingers’.
Model the activity by calling out ‘sleeve’. Get the whole class to
orally segment the word on their fingers /s-l-ee-ve/. Call out
‘3-2-1: show me’ and the children show you the number of
phonemes in that word using their fingers (4). Now the children
are ready to play by themselves. Call out ‘lie’ and get the children
to segment the word on their fingers quietly with their partners.
Call out ‘3-2-1: show me’ and the children show you the number
of fingers they used. The whole class then orally segments the
word with you, using your fingers (this is the teaching part of
the activity). Confirm the number of phonemes (2). Repeat with
the following words: 'tee' (2), 'meet' (3), 'cried' (4), 'died' (3), 'see'
(2).
Practise
Practise segmenting and spelling words with long vowels ‘ie’
and ‘ee’.
Teach the rules about representing /l/, /f/, /k/ after a vowel
digraph.
Play a variation on ‘Full circle’: give a sock puppet to each child
(the following letters must be used: ‘ie’, ‘ee’, ‘n’, ‘f’, ‘r’, ‘s’, ‘qu’, ‘b’,
‘ff’, ‘w’, ‘k’, ‘c’, ‘ck’, ‘p’, ‘d’, ‘t’ ). Get each child to put his/her hand
inside the sock to make a puppet. Explain to the children that
they are going to make as many words as they can in five
minutes (set a timer or watch the clock). Call out ‘queen’ and get
the whole class to orally segment (/qu-ee-n/). Ask the children
who are holding the graphemes for the word to come to the front
of the room and make the word. Let all the children who think
they have graphemes for that word come up to the front (even if it
makes the word wrong). Get the whole class to blend and read
the word they have made. If it is incorrect, get the children to
identify and correct any mistakes. Then blend and read the new
word together and see if this is correct. If it is, you can move onto
the next word, and if not, you will need to help them make further
corrections. Repeat with ‘free’, ‘tried’, ‘queen’, ‘beef’, ‘week’,
‘creep’, ‘spied’, ‘need’ until the five minutes is up. Every time the
children complete a word, put a tally on the whiteboard. At the
end of five minutes, count up how many words they have made.
You could make a note of this on the wall and next time you play
the game (albeit with different words) they can try and beat their
score. This challenges the children and helps them concentrate.
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It also keeps the pace of the lesson fast.
Note: The children may well make spelling errors when writing
‘beef’ and ‘week’, because at Phase 4 they learnt that after a
vowel, you usually get ‘ff’ or ‘ck’ at the end of a word with a /f/ or
/k/ sound. You need to teach them that this was when the
vowels were short vowels (use the hands together
movement to reinforce), whereas now they are learning
about words with a long vowel sound (use the hands wide
apart to reinforce).
Apply their phonics
learning
Apply their phonic learning while writing.
Get the children back into carpet partners. Play ‘What’s in the
box?’ (see earlier sample session). Use two of the objects listed
above. Specifically praise children you see orally segmenting the
word on their fingers before they try and write it down. Call out ‘32-1: show me’ and the children show you the word they have
written. Tell the children some of the different answers you can
see (or whether they all thought it was the same thing). Open the
box and reveal the object. Get the whole class to orally segment
the word on their fingers while you write the phonemes on the
whiteboard to make the word (this is the teaching part of the
activity). Get the children to check the word on their whiteboard
with the one on the whiteboard. Repeat with the next word.
Sample session 4
Phase 5
Long vowel phonemes:
/ee/ (ee, ea, y, e), /ie/ (igh, y, ie, i-e, i), /oe/ (oa, ow, o-e, o),
/ae/ (ai, ay, a-e, a), /ue/ (oo, ew, ue, o), /oo/ (oo, ou, u),
/ow/ (ow, ou), /oi/ (oy, oi), /ar/ (ar, a), /au/ (ar, a), /ur/ (er, ir, ur),
/air/ (air, are, ear), /ear/ (ear, eer, ere), /ure/ (ure, our).
Resources
Letter cards for all Phase 5 vowel digraphs: ‘ai’, ‘ee’, ‘ie’, ‘oa’, ‘oo’,
‘or’, ‘ir’, ‘ar’, ‘oi’, ‘ou’.
Other letter cards showing grapheme–phoneme
correspondences already covered (enough for one each when
added to the cards above). This set must include 't', 'i', 'e', 'm', 'l',
'c' ,'r', 'k', 'n', 'p'.
Six sentence cards (one sentence on each): 'I can pack a shine’,
'I can pack a coat', 'I can pack wine', 'I can pack Spain', 'I can
pack a shirt', 'I can pack a kite'.
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Note: Word and sentence cards should not be on display until
after the main oral blending activity has been completed.
Daily discrete teaching session (approximately 20 minutes for all children)
Revisit and review
recently and
previously learned
grapheme–
phoneme
correspondences
Ask the children if they can remember the rhyme that helps them
read vowel digraphs. Say it all together: ‘Two vowels out walking,
the first one does the talking’.
Teach
Teach and practise new grapheme–phoneme
correspondences for this phase and the concept of a split
digraph.
Reading focus –
split digraph
Practise
Apply their phonics
learning
Play ‘Mood sounds’ using all the digraph cards from Phase 5
(see above). Keep shuffling the cards and changing the order you
show them in.
Play a variation on ‘Split digraph’ as follows: all the children have
a letter card (see above); call out a word, for example, 'time' and
the children with the relevant letter cards stand up and form the
word. The children holding the ‘i’ and ‘e’ letters (making the
split digraph) should hold hands over the top of the letter
separating them, rather than behind, so the class can see they
make a pair. After a word has been made, point to each phoneme
in turn and get the children to blend and read the word made (this
teaches them how to blend and read words containing a split
digraph). Let all the children who think they have letters for a
word come up and make that word (even if it is incorrect). This
way, when you all blend and read the word they have made, the
children can help each other identify and correct any mistakes.
You should then blend and read the new word together and see if
this is correct. If it is, you can move on to the next word, and if
not, you will need to help them make further corrections.
Play ‘Going on holiday’. Explain to the children that you are going
on holiday and are travelling by car. You are going to show the
children a sentence which tells them something you can pack in
the car. They have to decide whether that statement is correct or
not. Get the children into carpet partners and model the activity:
Show them the ‘I can pack a shine’ card. Read the sentence
together, blending and reading the underlined word. Countdown
‘3-2-1: show me’ and the children do thumbs up if they think
‘shine’ is something you could take on holiday, or thumbs down if
they think it isn’t. Now the children are ready to play by
themselves. Show them the ‘I can pack a coat’ card. This time the
children quietly read the sentence with their partner and work out
whether or not it could be taken on holiday. Specifically praise
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any children who you see blending and reading the word
‘bike’. Countdown ‘3-2-1: show me’ and the children show
thumbs up/down. Read the sentence together, blending and
reading the underlined word (this is the teaching part of the
activity), so the children can check if they were correct. Repeat
with the remaining cards (see above).
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