QTS Phonics and Early Reading 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: What are 'tricky words' (also called common exception words) in phonics programmes?
- Words that cannot be fully decoded using taught phonics at that stage (Correct answer)
- Words with more than six letters
- Words from other languages
- Words pupils find emotionally difficult
Correct answer: Words that cannot be fully decoded using taught phonics at that stage
Tricky words are words where the grapheme-phoneme correspondences do not follow patterns pupils have been taught yet, such as 'said' or 'the', requiring partial or whole-word memorisation.
Question 2: Which phoneme is represented by the grapheme 'igh'?
- /aɪ/ as in 'light' (Correct answer)
- /ɪ/ as in 'bit'
- /iː/ as in 'feet'
- /eɪ/ as in 'late'
Correct answer: /aɪ/ as in 'light'
The grapheme 'igh' represents the phoneme /aɪ/, as in words like 'light', 'night', and 'right'. It is a trigraph (three letters, one sound).
Question 3: In SSP, what is meant by 'segmenting'?
- Breaking a word into its individual phonemes to spell it (Correct answer)
- Blending sounds together to read a word
- Grouping words by spelling pattern
- Dividing text into sentences
Correct answer: Breaking a word into its individual phonemes to spell it
Segmenting is the process of separating a spoken word into its constituent phonemes in order to spell it — the reverse process of blending.
Question 4: Which phase of Letters and Sounds introduces consonant clusters such as 'bl', 'cr', and 'str'?
- Phase 4 (Correct answer)
- Phase 2
- Phase 3
- Phase 5
Correct answer: Phase 4
Phase 4 of Letters and Sounds focuses on adjacent consonants (clusters) such as blends, consolidating Phase 2 and 3 graphemes in words with more complex structures.
Question 5: What is 'phonemic awareness'?
- The ability to hear, identify and manipulate individual sounds in spoken words (Correct answer)
- The ability to read printed graphemes
- Knowledge of spelling rules
- Understanding punctuation in text
Correct answer: The ability to hear, identify and manipulate individual sounds in spoken words
Phonemic awareness is an oral and auditory skill — it refers to awareness of and ability to manipulate the individual phonemes in spoken language, before print is introduced.
Question 6: The Phonics Screening Check includes 'pseudo-words'. What is their purpose?
- To assess decoding skills without relying on sight word recognition (Correct answer)
- To test vocabulary knowledge
- To measure reading comprehension
- To assess spelling ability
Correct answer: To assess decoding skills without relying on sight word recognition
Pseudo-words (nonsense words) are included to ensure pupils are using phonics decoding rather than recognising whole words from memory.
QTS Phonics and Early Reading 2
What are 'tricky words' (also called common exception words) in phonics programmes?