Phonics skills chart from Scholastic

According to this chart from Scholastic, phonics skills are typically learned up until 6th grade, with many of the basics mastered by 3rd grade.

Not sure what kind of phonics activities you should start with? Confused about the levels of phonics instruction? Fuzzy on how to tell when a student has mastered a phonics task? Check out the chart below, created with the guidance of phonics expert Wiley Blevins.

PHONICS SKILLS CHART

Task Competency	Approximate Age of Mastery	Examples
Child can recognize letters by name.	Preschool	Child can point to an "A" and call it an "A."
Child can recognize a few letters by sound.	Preschool	Child can point to a "P" and say that it makes the sound /p/.
Child can recognize rhyming sounds and alliterations in simple words.	Kindergarten	Adult asks child to name a word that sounds like "cat." Child says, "hat."
Child can identify when the first letter sound of a word is different from the first letter sound of another word.	Kindergarten	Adult shows a picture of a sock, a sun, and a boat and asks which picture name begins with a different sound. Child says, "boat"
Child can blend simple word parts together to form a word. Child can also distinguish a lower-case letter from an upper-case letter.	Kindergarten	Adult says /k/ /at/ and asks the child what word has been spelled. Child says, "cat."
Child can blend individual letter sounds together to form a word.	Kindergarten/ First Grade	Adult asks the child what word is made when these sounds are put together —/k/ /a/ /t/. Child responds, "cat."
Child can segment, or separate, a word sound by sound.	First Grade (Mid – to – late)	Adult asks the child what sounds make up the word "cat." Child responds, "/k/ /a/ /t/."
Child understands how changing letters in a word changes the sounds and the meaning.	First Grade (Mid – to – late)	Child spells '"cat" and when asked is able to change the "c" to another letter to make a new word such as "bat."
Child can sound out one-syllable words with short and long vowel spellings.	First Grade (Mid – to – late)	Child can sound out the words map, rain, and bean.
Child can sound out multisyllabic words.	Grades 3–6	Child can sound out the words sometimes, everything, customer, pilot, and remember.
Child can use prefixes, suffixes, and Greek and Latin roots to sound out and define new words.	Grades 3–6	Child can sound out the words unhappy, repeating, telephone, and autograph.

It appears that certain groups of children especially benefit from explicit phonics instruction.  Some students, such as highly intelligent children with no learning disabilities may do fine without phonics lessons.  While there are some benefits that everyone can gain from phonics, it is probably not a critical curriculum component for many early readers.

TeacherVision:  Research has shown that systematic, explicit phonics instruction results in better growth in children's ability to comprehend what they read than non-systematic or no phonics instruction (Report of the National Reading Panel, 2000). Although many students (approximately 50%) will learn to read despite the instructional method employed, the other half who struggle will require systematic, explicit phonics instruction if they are to become successful readers.

"Programs including systematic instruction on letter-to-sound correspondences lead to higher achievement in both word recognition and spelling, at least in the early grades and especially for slower or economically disadvantaged students" (Adams, 1990).