Word

Meaning

blending

The process of using phonics for reading. Children identify and blend the individual sounds together to hear and say the whole word.

CVC, CCVC, CVCC

These represent how words are structured.

The ‘c’ = consonant and the ‘v’ = vowel.

E.g. cat = cvc

drip = ccvc

milk = cvcc

Common exception word (CEW)

Sometimes called a tricky word, these words have an unusual or tricky spelling, e.g. said, one, their. They are not spelt as they sound.

grapheme

A letter or group of letters representing one sound. A grapheme is what the sound looks like when written down; the letter shape.

phoneme

The sound that a letter or group of letters makes. This may also be referred to as a letter-sound.

segmenting

Using phonics skills to support spelling and writing. Children listen to the whole word and break it up into the letter-sounds. E.g. ‘lunch’ can be segmented as l-u-n-ch.

sound out

Encouraging children to say each individual sound in a word before saying the whole word aloud.