Week 5, lesson 5 Captain Consonants activity - Phonics Phase 2 - Worksheet

In the fifth lesson of Week 5, young learners are introduced to four new 'tricky words' in their phonics journey. The objective of the lesson is clear: "Today we will learn four new tricky words: I, go, no, of!" These words are labelled 'tricky' because they do not conform to the usual phonetic rules, making them challenging for children to decode using typical phonics strategies. The lesson begins with a revisiting activity where children practice their grapheme writing skills by quickly writing down graphemes in response to spoken phonemes.

The teaching segment of the lesson involves a story that helps to contextualise the difficulty of these words, acknowledging that they are exceptions in the phonics world. The teacher writes the words on the board, complete with sound buttons, and together with the class, decodes each one. Children are encouraged to count the phonemes and to blend the sounds repeatedly to reinforce their understanding. To practice, the class engages in a 'Tricky Word Race', where they are split into two teams and challenged to sound out and then quickly say the tricky words, aiming to improve their speed with each round. The application of the lesson involves mini whiteboard work, where children sound-talk the tricky words and practise spelling them, with the option of using phoneme frames to assist. The lesson plan also suggests extension activities like using magnetic letters and printing to further cement the learning of these challenging words.