Recommended Order of Phonics Topics

There are many phonics topics to teach after teaching letter names and sounds.

But which one to teach first?

You may find many sequences recommending which one to teach first. But remember

There is no perfect order for teaching phonics skills.

The free download can be found towards the END of this post. Just look for and click on the purple, download button.

Today we’ll look at my recommended order for teaching phonics skills.

• Letter name and letter sounds :

Start with Letter names and their sounds. Introduce Consonants and Vowels

Identifying Beginning Sounds of words (apple, bat)

• Short vowel sounds:

CVC Words

Identify beginning, middle and last sound of cvc words.

Rhyming words

• FLOSS rule :

Words ending with double consonants ff, ll, ss, zz

bell, sniff, boss, buzz

• Beginning Blends:

L-blends: bl, cl, fl, gl, pl, sl

R-blends: br, cr, dr, fr, gr, pr, tr

S-blends: sc, sk, sm, sn, sp, st, sw

• Digraph :

ch sh ph th wh

• R Controlled Vowels :

ar er ir or ur

• Ending Blends:

lp(pulp), ct(fact), pt(kept), sk(desk), lk(milk), lf, nt(tent),ck(duck) xt, ft(left), nd(wind),  st(test), lt(bolt), nch(much)

• Magic e Words:

Introducing Vowel Long sounds by adding e to end of 3 cvc words

cake, mine, bone, mute

• Dipthongs:

Ou oi ow ou

• Long Vowel Sounds:

Long a – ai ay

Long e – ea ee

Long I –ie igh y

Long o – oa ow oe

Long u – ew ue oo

• Soft and Hard c, g:

Soft: city, gem           Hard: cat, grape

• Glued Sounds:

-ing, -ang, -ong, -ung, -ank, -ink, -onk, -unk

• Spellings with c k ck:

c vc k (beginning)– cat vs kit

 k vs ck (ending) — pink vs lock

• Consonant+le:

-ble (table), -dle (needle), -fle (baffle), -gle (eagle), -kle (twinkle), -ple (apple), -tle (little), -zle (puzzle)

• Trigraphs:

air, ear, ure, igh, tch, dge

• Y as vowel

Y as long e (baby)

Y as long i(cry)

• Prefixes:

un-, dis-, re-, im-, ill-, en-, em-, non-, im-, over-, mis-, sub-, pre-, inter-, fore-, de-, trans-, super-, semi-, anti-, mid-, under

• Suffixes:

-s/-es,  -ly, -er/-or, -ion/-tion/-ation/-ition, -ible/-able, -al/-ial, -y, -ness, -ity/-ty, -ment, -ic, -ous/-eous/-ious, -en, -er, -ive/-ative/-itive, -ful, -less, -est

To make things even easier for parents and teach phonics in structered way  there are also some excellent phonics books available that turn practice into play. Below, I’ve recommended the best resource that can support your child’s phonics  journey at home.