I can still remember my first-ever phonics course many years go. They wrote sets of letters on the board and asked us if we knew what sounds they made. I remember thinking pleeease don't ask me! I had grown up on Letterland, and all I knew was "ah, buh, cuh". I had no idea what sounds letters made when they were put together! How was I ever going to teach Phonics to children?! That moment is one of the main reasons I run Mini Writers Club. Every year, a new set of children an

Have you got a set of flashcards and are now wondering what to do with them? Here are 10 fun games and activities to play using your Phonics Flashcards. You could play these games using sounds, decodable words or tricky word cards. When selecting the cards to use for each game, include some they know to help with their confidence. Add or change the cards when they become confident with them, but come back to the same ones after a week or so, to make sure they can remember the

Your child will learn to read and spell tricky words during their phonics sessions. You might hear them referred to as something else, such as red words, common exception words or sight words. I like to call them tricky for now words because once we learn the tricky part, they are no longer tricky! People often think tricky words can't be sounded out and need to be learnt by sight. In fact, tricky words can be sounded, but they aren't easy to decode. This is because they are

When you teach your child a sound, try to say it clearly without adding any additional sounds to the end. This is often referred to as using pure sounds, which is when we say the sounds as cleanly as possible and try not to add 'uh' to the end of the sound. Why is it important? It makes it easier for your child to blend the sounds if we don't add any extra sounds to the end. Top Tip: Some sounds are tricky to say without adding an 'uh' e.g. d, g, b, p. If we use a loud voice,

Phonics is the prime approach for teaching children to read. Once your child knows some sounds, they can begin to blend. Blending is when we say the individual sounds and then push them together to read the word. Oral Blending Blending can be tricky at first because there are lots of steps. Your child needs to recognise the letters, know what sound they represent, sound out the word, hold the sounds in their head and then push them together to make a word. Before we teach ch