Why order matters more than pace
Phonics is cumulative in a way most subjects are not. A child cannot read ship until they know that sh is one sound, and they cannot hold three sounds in mind long enough to blend them until they have done it with two. Every step rests directly on the one before.
This is why a child who seems to have 'hit a wall' has almost always skipped something earlier. The fix is rarely more practice at the hard thing — it is going back to the step underneath it.
The sequence, in order
1. Letter sounds. The sound each letter makes, not its name. This alone takes many children several months.
2. Two-sound blending. Words like at, in, up. Pushing two sounds together is a real cognitive step and much easier to learn on two than three.
3. CVC words. cat, pin, sun. The first properly readable words.
4. Word families and short-vowel spelling rules. Reading in chunks rather than letter by letter.
5. Digraphs and blends. sh, ch, th; then bl, st, nd.
6. Magic E. The first long-vowel pattern, and the first time a silent letter does real work.
7. Vowel teams and diphthongs. ai, ee, oa, oi, ow.
8. R-controlled vowels. ar, er, ir, or, ur.
9. Suffixes, prefixes and syllable division. The tools for long words.
Where sight words fit
Sight words are taught alongside this sequence, not instead of it. A child needs the, was and said almost immediately in order to read any real sentence, but they should be a small handful learned as exceptions — not a strategy for reading in general. See phonics vs sight words.
How to tell a step has been skipped
Watch what happens with an unfamiliar word. A child who is genuinely decoding will attempt it, sound by sound, and may get it wrong. A child who is guessing will say a different word that starts with the same letter, or one that fits the picture. Guessing is the signal to go back a step.
