Kindergarten phonics, phase 4: h, b, f and l, and the double letters ff, ll and ss

Phase 4 adds 7 spellings, among them h, b, f, ff and l, and 6 heart words. With them a child can sound out 69 more of the 383 everyday words on our common-word list, 150 in all.

The sounds this phase adds

By the end of this phase a child has met 23 sounds altogether.

Typically read in kindergarten, winter, in the order most US classrooms teach these sounds. A grade here is a guide to when, never a measure of a child.

Heart words (sometimes called tricky words)

These can’t be sounded out with the letters taught so far, so the part that doesn’t follow them is learned by heart. Every phonics program has a handful of them and this is ours. Every phase’s heart words on one page.

was
you
they
all
are
my

The new words this phase opens up

This phase lets a child read 69 everyday words they couldn’t read before. These are the ones worth practicing, because they already have the rest.

if of bad bag bat bed big bin bit bog bug bun bus but fan fig fin fit fog fun had ham has hat hen him his hit hog hop hot hug hut lad lap led leg let lit log lot off old also back call find from hand help hiss kiss land last left list mess miss talk tell began often plant small spell still until animal little

Everything they can read by the end of it

Below is every word from the first five hundred of English that a child who has been taught these sounds can work out for themselves. There are 150 of them, shortest first. Nobody wrote this list by hand. We made it by running the words through the same check that decides whether a page of one of our books may use a word at all.

an as at do if in is it of on so up and ask bad bag bat bed big bin bit bog bug bun bus but can cap cot cup cut dad dam den did dig din dog dot end fan fig fin fit fog fun gap get got had ham has hat hen him his hit hog hop hot hug hut its kit lad lap led leg let lit log lot mad man map mat men met mop mug nap net not nut off old pan pat peg pen pet pig pin pit pop pot pup put rag ram ran rat red rug run sad sat set sit sun tag tan tap ten tin top tug also back call find from hand help hiss kind kiss land last left list mess mind miss must open stop talk tell began often plant small spell still until animal little second sentence

The heart words above are left out of this list, because they aren’t sounded out. If you print this page, the two lists come out separately, so you can practice them separately too.

How a book uses this

Checked against the sounds taught

When a book is held strictly to a child's phonics phase, its writing is checked against a target of at least 95% of words using only the letter sounds taught so far and no page more than 10% outside them, not counting character names, the heart words already taught and a few words the story is about, and a draft that misses is written again.

Why names aren’t counted

A story about a dragon called Ferdinand shouldn’t use up its whole allowance of tricky words on the name. So character names are left out of the check, and so are a few words that say what the story is about, such as the place it is set, up to 2 times a page.