Essential Letters and Sounds (ELS)
ELS teaches children to read using a systematic synthetic phonics approach. It is designed to be used as part of an early learning environment that is rich in talk and story, where children experience the joy of books and language whilst rapidly acquiring the skills to become fluent independent readers and writers.
ELS teaches children to:
• decode by identifying each sound within a word and blending them together to read fluently
• encode by segmenting each sound to write words accurately.
We know that for children at the end of Key Stage 1 to achieve the age-related expectations, they need to read fluently at 90 words per minute. As children move into Key Stage 2, it is vitally important that even those who have made the slowest progress are able to read age-appropriate texts independently and with fluency.
For children to engage with the wider curriculum, they need to be able to read well, making inferences and drawing on background knowledge to support their developing understanding of a text when they read. To do this, they need to be able to draw not only on their phonic knowledge but also on their wider reading and comprehension skills, each of which must be taught.
The first step in this complex process is the link between spoken and written sounds. ELS whole-class, daily phonics teaching must begin from the first days of Reception. Through the rigorous ELS teaching programme, children will build an immediate understanding of the relationship between the sounds they can hear and say (phonemes) and the written sounds (graphemes).
See below for the order in which we learn our sounds and harder to read words.
Autumn Term 1 – Phase 2 |
Week 1: s a t p |
Week 2: i n m d HRS words: I the no |
Week 3: g o c k HRS words: put of is |
Week 4: ck e u r HRS words: to go into |
Week 5: ss HRS words: pull Assess and review week |
Week 6: h b f ff l ll HRS words: as his |
Autumn Term 2 – Phase 3 |
Week 1: j v w x HRS words: he she buses |
Week 2: y z zz qu ch HRS words: we me be |
Week 3: sh th (voiced and unvoiced) ng nk HRS words: push |
Week 4: ai ee igh oa HRS words: was her |
Week 5: -es (where there is no change to the root word) Assess and review week |
Week 6: Review week HRS words: my you |
Spring Term 1 – Phase 3-4 |
Week 1: oo (book) HRS words: said so have Review week |
Week 2: ar ur oo (food) or HRS words: they all are |
Week 3: ow oi ear air |
Week 4: ure er ow HRS words: ball tall |
Week 5: Assess and review week HRS words: when what |
Week 6: Review week |
Spring Term 2 – Phase 3-4 |
Week 1: Review week HRS words: said so have |
Week 2: Review week HRS words: were out like |
Week 3: Review week HRS words: some come there |
Week 4: Review week HRS words: little one do |
Week 5: Assess and review week HRS words: children love |
Week 6: Review week |
Summer Term 1 – Phase 4 |
Week 1: cvcc words -ed /ed/ |
Week 2: ccvc words -ed /t/ |
Week 3: ccvcc -ed /d/ |
Week 4: cccvc |
Week 5: Assess and review week |
Week 6: cccvcc -er -est |
Summer Term 2 – Phase 5 Introduction |
Week 1: ay ou ie ea -le HRS words: oh their |
Week 2: oy ir ue aw HRS words: people Mr Mrs |
Week 3: wh ph ew aw HRS words: your ask should |
Week 4: au ey a-e e-e HRS words: would could asked |
Week 5: Assess and review week HRS words: house mouse water |
Week 6: i-e o-e u-e c HRS words: want very |
HRS: Harder to read and spell words
GPC: Grapheme-phoneme correspondence