Typical Phonics Progression

Please use the phonics progression or scope and sequence for the program that you are using.  The following is a typical phonics progression:

Grade 1

Letters and sounds

CVC words (consonant/vowel/consonant)

Schwa or Misbehaving Letters (also known as tricky words or red words)

Open and Closed Syllables

Blends and Digraphs

  • Consonant blends (i.e. br, sl, sm, cl, dr) and consonant digraphs (i.e. sh, ch, wh, th ,ng)
  • Soldier rule ck
  • Complex vowels – long vowels associated with single letters a, e, i, o, u and magic/silent e (VCe)

Grade 2

Complex Vowels:

  • Vowel Teams with long vowel sounds (i.e. ee, ea, ai, ay, oa ow, oe, igh)
  • Predictable vowel teams (i.e. ow and ou, ai and ay)
  • Unpredictable vowel teams (i.e. ea)
  • Dipthongs oi/oy and ou/ow
  • Vowel controlled r (ar, er, ir or, ur)
  • Vowel combinations are, air, our, ore, ear, eer,  ure, etc

Complex Consonants

  • Trigraphs squ, str, scr, thr and shr (including Soldier Rule tch and dge)
  • Final nasal consonants (i.e. nt, nd, mp and nk)
  • Digraphs ph, gh, ch
  • Silent letters kn, mb, wr, gh
  • Hard/soft c and g
  • The many jobs of y

Grade 3

Multisyllable words

  • Syllable types:
    • Closed
    • Silent e
    • Open
    • vowlel team
    • consonant-le
    • vowel-r
  • Syllable division rules

Writing Rules Grades 2-3

  • Floss Rule
  • Doubling Rule
  • Drop silent e when adding a suffix
  • Change y to an i when adding a suffix
  • Homophones
  • Contractions
  • Possessive plurals
  • Inflected Suffixes with and without a spelling change (i.e.  walking, caring)