The vocabulary of a child advances at a truly amazing pace. While a typical one-year old should recognise approximately 50 words, children will normally be familiar with a staggering 10,000 words by the age of five. However, some phrases and words are more important than others. This is even more relevant when discussing phonics.
Most of us are likely to still remember the phonics lessons that were required when we were quite young. While they could have appeared boring at the time, they were absolutely essential in terms of building a solid vocabulary from the “ground up”. Let’s therefore take a quick look at some phonics-related words and information that children by the age of five should be able to grasp.
What Exactly is Phonics?
We should begin by briefly reviewing the role that phonics plays in childhood development. Simply stated, phonics represents the ability to associate letters with specific sounds. These can then be used to create different words. For example, children who are five years old should be able to tell that “book” starts with the letter “b” due to how it is pronounced as opposed to the mere spelling alone.
Phonics is particularly relevant when learning words that are more challenging to pronounce. Common examples include “through”, “rough”, “tooth”, and “ambulance”. The issue here is that some letter combinations will produce different sounds while others (such as through and rough) are pronounced in entirely unique ways (depending on the spelling).
We can now see why learning phonics-relevant words is so critical. Thankfully, modern tools such as this EYFS assessment guide can provide parents and teachers with the insight required to determine which children might require a bit more personalised attention.
Phonics Words of Interest
Keep in mind that there is no discrete list of phonics words that every child should know. Some will learn at a faster rate than others. Having said this, there are still a handful of core examples. These are sometimes referred to as “key words” such as those found immediately below:
- And
- The
- As
- It
- Of
Why learn these words?
While they are not normally associated with any significance in and of themselves, these words can be used to structure a sentence or phrase. Furthermore, they will frequently be employed when expressing more complex thoughts (such as those associated with a compounds sentence). Children who appreciate their function as well as where they should be placed will therefore have a much firmer grasp upon grammar as a whole.
Furthermore, research has discovered that learning 13 of the most common phonics key words will enable a five-year-old child to understand up to 25 per cent of the entire text; even if some individual words may be unfamiliar. We can now see why building solid phonics skills at an early age is the best way to ensure a rewarding and beneficial educational experience.
