We teach the children how to read lots of words using phonics. However, not all words follow the phonic rules we teach in the earliest stages of our phonics teaching.

For some high frequency words (words the children will come across a lot in their reading), we teach the children to memorise and read them without needing to sound out and blend. Some of these we call tricky words. We try to remember them as it can be too tricky to use phonics to read them at this stage. They are tricky 'for now'. Being able to read these words quickly helps to build their fluency and confidence as early readers.

In some classes, tricky words lists will be sent home for you to practice in your child's book bag or yellow reading record. You will also find them inside the front cover of some of our reading books to practice before you start to read.

This video tells you more.

Which are the tricky words and how do I pronounce them?

The videos below will show the tricky words that your child works through. Lots of our parents often ask us how to pronounce tricky words, so these videos will also show this and can be used with your child to practise reading and saying tricky words. 

To support the children's fluency and spelling, we also practise reading many words from the year group common exception lists using this approach where appropriate, so you may also see these additional words coming home to practise reading.