Alternative Pronunciation

Phase 5 alternative pronunciation resources, games and activities

Explore our range of phase 5 resources that cover alternative pronunciations, all aligned with the phase 5 Letters and Sounds progression and order of teaching. We have a whole range of resources for phase 5 including phase 5 alternative pronunciation worksheets, games, lesson resources and much more! The phase 5 alternative pronunciations should only be taught once children have a good grasp of the 44 phonemes of the English language, as otherwise you could be causing more confusion.

What are the phase 5 alternative pronunciations?

Phase 5 alternative pronunciations refer to graphemes that can be pronounced in a range of different ways. For example the letter ‘y’ could be pronounced as the ‘y’ in yellow, or an ‘igh’ sound as in the word ‘Floppy’. Another example is the GPC ‘I’, this could be pronounced as in the word ‘tin’, or more of an ‘igh’ sound like in the word ‘find’. Some other common phase 5 alternative pronunciations are:

  • i in fin, find
  • ow in cow, blow
  • y in yes, by, very
  • o in hot, cold
  • ie in tie, field
  • ch in chin, school, chef
  • c in cat, cent
  • ea in eat, bread
  • ou in out, shoulder, could, you
  • g in got, giant
  • er in farmer, her
  • u in but, put (south)
  • a in hat, what

How to teach phase 5 alternative pronunciations?

Here are some ideas for teaching the phase 5 alternative pronunciations for previously taught graphemes:

  1. Display a word where the vowel letter stands for the sound learned for it in Phase Two (e.g. milk) and ask the children to sound-talk and read it.
  2. Display a word with the alternative pronunciation (e.g. find), sound-talk and read it using the incorrect pronunciation and therefore saying a nonsense word.
  3. Discuss with the children which grapheme might have a different pronunciation (e.g. find).
  4. Sound-talk the word again and read the word, this time correctly.
  5. Display another word.
  6. Ask the children to sound-talk it to their partners and decide the correct pronunciation.
  7. Choose a pair of children and ask them to read the word.
  8. Continue with more words.