In Phase 5 children are introduced to new graphemes for reading. Some of these graphemes represent phonemes (sounds) that they have already learnt a grapheme for. For example, in Phase 3 children were taught 'ai' as the grapheme for the phoneme /a/ (as in rain). In Phase 5, children are taught that the phoneme /a/ can also be represented by the graphemes 'ay' (as in play) or 'a-e' (as in make). This variation needs to be taught as it is common in our language system. Alternative pronunciations for graphemes will also be introduced, e.g. ea in tea, head and break. With practice, the speed at which children can recognise and blend graphemes will improve as they become more fluent readers.