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Kindergarten phonics in NSW: what the syllabus says, and how to help at home

Parent guides. Facts checked on 6 November 2026 against the official pages listed at the foot.

Phonics is how NSW children start to read and spell in Kindergarten. The NSW English K-10 Syllabus (2022) gives it a focus area of its own, phonic knowledge, with one outcome for the year. Here is what that outcome asks for in plain words, where digraphs, decodable books and sight words fit, and what a parent can do at home in about ten minutes a day.

Try seven questions with your child on Learnest's own screens: the Kindergarten demo.

What does the Kindergarten phonics syllabus say?

The outcome for phonic knowledge in Early Stage 1, numbered ENE-PHOKW-01, says a child "uses single-letter grapheme-phoneme correspondences and common digraphs to decode and encode words when reading and creating texts".

In plain words, a phoneme is a sound, and a grapheme is the letter or letters that stand for it. To decode is to read a word by working out its sounds. To encode is to spell a word by writing a letter for each sound. So by the end of Kindergarten, a child uses the sounds of single letters and of common letter pairs to read words and to spell them when they write.

What does a Kindergarten child learn to do?

Single letter sounds
Saying the most common sound for each single letter.
Short words
Reading and spelling words of two or three sounds, known as VC and CVC words, such as at and cat.
Longer words
Blending sounds to read CCVC and CVCC words, such as stop and lamp, and breaking the same kinds of words into sounds to spell them.
Consonant digraphs
Reading words with two letters that stand for one sound, such as sh, ch and th, and spelling CVC words that contain them, such as ship and chop.
A first try at harder spellings
The syllabus has children experiment with spelling words that contain split digraphs, such as the a and e in cake, and vowel digraphs, such as the ee in see. Experimenting is the syllabus's word, so a wrong try is expected.

The syllabus also asks children to apply these skills when reading texts, including decodable texts, and when they write their own.

Which letters come first?

The syllabus page names the skills, and it does not print a list of letters in order. Each school plans its own lessons, so your child's teacher can tell you the school's order and which sounds the class has covered.

A set such as s, a, t, p, i and n shows why the order matters. With only those six letters a child can already read sat, tap and pin, so reading real words starts within weeks.

Where do sight words fit?

The phonic knowledge page lists no sight words, and we found no official NSW list of Kindergarten sight words in the pages we checked. The syllabus talks about high-frequency words instead: the small set of words that appear in nearly every sentence, such as the, and and was.

A child needs to read those words at a glance, but most of them can be sounded out once the sounds are taught. If your school sends a list home, use it, and point out the sounds your child knows in each word. The learning to read guide says more about how this has changed since many parents were at school.

What are decodable books?

Decodable books use only the sounds a child has been taught, so every word can be worked out. The syllabus names decodable texts in its phonics content, for reading both single letter sounds and consonant digraphs. The books the school sends home are often of this kind, and they are the right practice, even when the story is thin. Keep reading richer stories aloud as well, because that is where new words and sentence shapes come from.

How can I help with phonics at home?

  1. Say the sound, not the letter's name: sss for s, not ess. Blending only works with the sounds.
  2. Sound out words together and blend them: c, a, t, cat.
  3. Turn it round for spelling. Say a word, count its sounds on your fingers, then write a letter for each.
  4. Use the books the school sends home, and read the same one again the next night.
  5. When your child stops on a word, say "sound it out" and wait. Give the first sound if they are stuck, not the word.
  6. Stop at about ten minutes, before it turns into a fight. A story you read to them can come after.
  7. Tell the teacher which sounds stay shaky. A short conversation early helps more than extra drills at home.

What comes after Kindergarten?

Stage 1 covers Years 1 and 2. Vowel teams, such as ee, ai, oa and oo, become the main work of Year 1. In Term 3 of Year 1, public schools give each child the Phonics Screening Check, in which the child reads 40 words aloud to the teacher, half of them made-up words. It is not a test to prepare for, and the learning to read guide explains it in full.

Questions parents ask

Is there a list of Kindergarten sight words for NSW?

The syllabus's phonic knowledge page for Kindergarten lists no sight words, and we found no official NSW list in the pages we checked. If your school sends a list home, use it, and point out the sounds your child knows in each word.

What is a digraph?

Two letters that stand for one sound, such as sh in ship or ch in chop. The Kindergarten outcome asks for single letter sounds and common digraphs.

What are CVC words?

Words made of a consonant, a vowel and a consonant, such as cat or pin. CCVC words such as stop and CVCC words such as lamp add one more consonant. The Kindergarten syllabus covers reading and spelling all of them.

What comes after Kindergarten phonics?

Vowel teams such as ee, ai, oa and oo are the main work of Year 1. Public schools give Year 1 students the Phonics Screening Check in Term 3.

How Learnest helps

On English days Learnest sets reading at the sounds your child has been taught, starting with letter sounds and short words in Kindergarten, with the usual slip named under a wrong answer. Maths and science questions are read aloud, so a child who is still learning to read can work alone. The first English day is a check that finds where your child is, the app teaches what is missing and brings it back in later reviews until it holds, and the nightly email names the one skill that slipped. Every question is Learnest's own.

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Sources

Checked 6 November 2026. Every date, number and rule above comes from these pages. If one of them has changed since, it is right and this page is behind.

Learnest is not affiliated with ACARA, NESA, the NSW Department of Education or the Australian Maths Trust. This guide explains the published facts in Learnest's own words; the official pages above are the record.