English Spelling & Word Studyusually ages 4–7

Phonics Vocabulary

Know and use the vocabulary of phonics and word structure — phoneme, grapheme, GPC (grapheme-phoneme correspondence), blend, segment, digraph, CVC, vowel, consonant, syllable, root word, suffix, prefix, and homophone — and understand that these words describe the building blocks that phonics instruction is built on

How to tell they’ve got it

Tick these off as you see them — no test required.

Say the sounds for common graphemes (e.g. 'sh', 'ch', 'th', 'ee', 'igh') and use 'phoneme' and 'grapheme' correctly when explaining
Blend sounds together to read an unfamiliar word and explain what they are doing using the word 'blend'
Segment a word into its individual sounds for spelling and use the term 'segment' to describe the process

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Try this together

When your child's teacher asks them to 'segment a word into phonemes' or spot a 'digraph', do they understand what those words mean and can they do the task without looking confused?

Where this sits on the map

Stuck here? Check the skills it builds on first. Confident? Here’s what it unlocks.

Builds on

Nothing on the map comes before this — it’s a starting point.

Phonics Vocabularythis skill · ages 4–7

Unlocks

Segmenting words into soundsages 4–7Segmenting words into phonemes and spelling CVC words requires knowing 'phoneme', 'segment', and 'CVC' as defined terms

Spelling Verb Endingsages 5–6Spelling with suffixes requires knowing 'suffix', 'root word', and understanding how suffixes attach

Spelling from Dictationages 5–8Applying taught GPCs in dictation requires understanding what a GPC is

The Prefix un-ages 5–6Spelling with prefixes requires knowing 'prefix' and 'root word' as distinct, named concepts

Alternative Spellings for Soundsages 6–9Alternative grapheme choices for phonemes requires knowing 'grapheme', 'phoneme', 'homophone', and 'GPC'

Suffixesages 6–7Suffix spelling rules (doubling final consonants, dropping -e) require knowing 'suffix', 'root word', 'vowel', and 'consonant'

+ 2 more in Spelling & Word Study →

solid = must come firstdashed = helps

Curriculum alignment

Candidate matches to official curriculum codes — machine-suggested, unreviewed (v0.1).

Show candidate curriculum codes · 3 ACARA · 2 NSW · 3 VIC

Australian Curriculum v9 candidate

AC9E3LY11high confidenceYear 3 · Literacy

use phoneme–grapheme (sound–letter) relationships and less common letter patterns to spell words

AC9E1LY09medium confidenceYear 1 · Literacy

segment words into separate phonemes (sounds) including consonant blends or clusters at the beginnings and ends of words (phonological awareness)

AC9E3LY09medium confidenceYear 3 · Literacy

understand how to apply knowledge of phoneme–grapheme (sound–letter) relationships, syllables, and blending and segmenting to fluently read and write multisyllabic words with more complex letter patterns

NSW syllabus codes & stages only

ENE-PHOKW-01high confidenceEnglish K-10 · Early Stage 1

EN1-PHOKW-01high confidenceEnglish K-10 · Stage 1

Victorian Curriculum 2.0 codes & levels only

VC2E3LY05high confidenceEnglish · Level 3 · Literacy strand

VC2E1LY03high confidenceEnglish · Level 1 · Literacy strand

VC2E2LY04high confidenceEnglish · Level 2 · Literacy strand

These are candidate alignments generated by semantic matching — machine-suggested and unreviewed (v0.1), not official or verified mappings. For official curriculum content see australiancurriculum.edu.au, curriculum.nsw.edu.au and f10.vcaa.vic.edu.au. Don’t rely on them for registration or compliance purposes.

Nearby on the map

Segmenting words into soundsages 4–7 Spelling from Dictationages 5–8 Spelling Verb Endingsages 5–6 The Prefix un-ages 5–6

All Spelling & Word Study skills →