This chart answers a different question than a curriculum outline: not "what is my child being taught," but "what should my child typically be able to do by now." Use it as a quick-reference check, not a strict pass/fail test — the ranges are wide and normal.
| Age | Typical milestone |
|---|---|
| 2-3 | Enjoys rhymes and repetition; points to and names pictures; recognises a few familiar logos or signs |
| 3-4 | Joins in nursery rhymes; can clap out syllables in simple words; may recognise letters in their own name |
| 4-5 | Knows most letter names; learning several letter sounds; can blend simple onset-rime orally (c-at → cat, said aloud) |
| 5-6 | Knows most or all single letter sounds; blends and reads simple CVC words; reads short decodable texts with support |
| 6-7 | Reads common digraphs and blends; decodes most single-syllable words with regular patterns; growing bank of sight words |
| 7-8 | Decodes two-syllable words with increasing ease; reading grows more fluent; applies common spelling patterns in writing |
| 8-9 | Reads multisyllable words fairly fluently; focus shifts more toward comprehension, vocabulary and reading stamina |
Free printable version of this chart
Download the Phonics Milestone Checklist — the same age-by-age milestones above in a printable checklist you can track over time.
How to read this chart
These are typical ranges based on mainstream early-literacy development, not fixed deadlines. It's normal for an individual child to be a little ahead in one area and a little behind in another — the pattern to watch for is being behind on several milestones at once, or a gap that isn't closing over a few months of normal exposure and practice.
Pair this with the content chart
This chart tells you what's typical; it doesn't tell you what your child's specific curriculum is covering right now. For that side of the picture, see our phonics scope and sequence chart.
If your child is behind on several of these
- Run a specific check, not a general impression. Test letter sounds, blending, and a short passage separately — being behind in one doesn't mean being behind in all.
- Look at trend, not a single snapshot. A gap that's narrowing over a few months is different from one that's staying flat or widening.
- Start practice at the earliest real gap. Skills build on each other, so working on the first missing piece usually unblocks progress on everything after it.
What if your child is ahead of these milestones instead
This chart gets used most often to check for a gap, but being noticeably ahead of it is common too, and it raises a different question worth a quick mention. A child comfortably clearing the milestone for their age isn't automatically a sign that every underlying phonics pattern is equally solid — fluent-looking reading can come from strong memory and context guessing as easily as from complete decoding skill, especially with familiar books. Being ahead on this chart is good news, but it's worth treating as a starting point for a closer look rather than a reason to stop checking altogether, particularly before skipping ahead in a curriculum or moving up a reading level at school. Our child ahead in phonics guide covers a simple way to check whether an advanced reader's phonics is as solid as it looks, using made-up but spelling-consistent words that can't be read from memory. The short version: being ahead on milestones and having zero pattern gaps underneath aren't guaranteed to be the same thing, and the check that confirms it takes only a few minutes.
For a step-by-step 10-minute check, see is my child behind in phonics, and for the full age-by-age picture, see our phonics stages by age guide.
Not sure where to start?
Build a free personalised phonics practice plan for your child — pick a start date and pace, we schedule the rest.