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Reach Crest Learning

Sounds and letters · Lesson 5 of 77

Two letters, one sound

Read with an adult. Take your time. You can say, point, draw or write your answer.

Let's look together

Sometimes two letters work together to show one sound. In ship, s and h work together: sh.

Ship has four letters but three sounds: sh-i-p. Keep sh together when you blend. Your adult will model each new sound.

sh — shipch — chipth — thinng — sing
Look, point and talk with your adult.

Watch how I do it

I read sh-i-p. I do not read s and h separately here. I push the three sounds together: ship.

Your turn

In chip, which two letters work together at the start?

Have a go before opening the answer.

Let's check together

ch. Blend ch-i-p to read chip.

Try it away from the page

Practise one pair at a time with an adult. Read ship/chip and sing/ring when ready. Listen to th in thin and then in this.

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Adult notes · prerequisites, safety and coverage

Teach sh,ch,th,ng separately before comparison. Th has voiced/unvoiced sounds; ng in sing is one phoneme. This is a revisitable lesson, not a four-pattern introduction in one sitting.

Read instructions aloud. Word-reading practice must match the child's taught sounds. The phonics pages support, but do not replace, the school's systematic synthetic phonics programme. Shared stories are adult-read unless the child can decode them. Re-read and practise daily.

These are teaching introductions, not a claim of mastery. Open the subject's coverage map and limits.