# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
With a library of activities and resources for every stage of the learning journey, curated by the team at Oxford University Press, we are here with inspiration to help your little ones learn, grow and flourish at home, in the classroom and beyond.

Just click on the sections in the menu to explore by subject, or use the options below to uncover content by age group.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Oxford Owl for Home: help your child learn at home - Oxford Owl

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Oxford Owl is packed with expert advice, tips and activities to help parents support their child's education. Help your child with reading, phonics and maths.

# data[].attributes.body
Click on each link to access 10 videos that will support your child with their reading journey at home.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Phonics Blending Song CVC Words and More

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Tricky Words Sight Words Song for I, go, to, no, is, the

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Red Ditty Books - complete Speedy Green Words

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Set 1 Green Storybooks - complete Speedy Green Words

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Learn and practice the sounds in set one! Help the wizards to make words and captions with s, a, t and p in this fun Phase 2 Phonics guide from BBC Bitesize.

# data[].attributes.body
Use this to play lots of phonics games - can your child say and write the sound? How many words can you think of or write down with that sound? Can you make the sound using something in your house?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
Wordwall - Create better lessons quicker

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Spin the wheel to see which item comes up next.. m, a, s, t, d, i, p, n, g, o, c, k, u, b, f, e, l, h, sh, r, j, v, y, w, z, ch, th, qu, x, ng, nk.

# data[].attributes.body
A helpful guide and some prompts when reading 1:1 with your child at home

# data[].attributes.body
Pick a Phase 2 comic and have a go at reading it using your sounds

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Free decodable comics for applying phonics skills.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Learn about the tricky words in Phase 3 Phonics in this fun phonics song from BBC Bitesize.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Balloon Phonics: Three-Letter Words CVC Game

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Balloon Phonics is a phonics reading game for young children who are learning their letter sounds
and it can help them with blending sounds and segmenting words. It focuses on three letter (cvc) words.

# data[].attributes.body
Recognising letters and sounds with Alphablocks here

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Today, children are taught to read using phonics, which is all about the sounds that make up words. Children start by learning the letters and the sounds they make, and how to put them together to make and read simple words. Then they learn how letters combine to make new sounds (such as SH), and move on to longer words and new reading skills.

This guide is especially for parents and carers to explain how phonics work and we've made these short videos to help you help your child learn to read.

Learning to read step by step

Alphablocks has five colour-coded stages to help you take phonics step by step.

The different phonics levels used in Alphablocks are:

First steps - red

You can find all of the red level episodes of Alphablocks here.
The first key skill in phonics is to learn the letters and their sounds. This stage introduces the most common letters and the sounds they make. This is different from the letter names many of us learned to read with.

When your child knows their first letters and sounds well, they are ready to read simple words. This involves the key skills of sounding out and blending: point to each letter to say its sound in turn, then say the sounds together to make the word. (Alphablocks do this by holding hands and saying 'c-a-t, CAT!', and so on.)

The other key skill is segmenting, which is the opposite of blending: listen to a word to hear which sounds make it up, and decide which letters you need to make the word.

At this stage, every letter has one sound. To help your child, it's a good idea to get to know the exact letter sounds as they are pronounced in modern phonics.

Letters are introduced in a sequence that means that children can start making and reading lots of words quite quickly. The first letters are s, a, t, p...

Along the way, we meet some double letters (ll, ff, ss) and ck.

Next steps - orange

You can find all of the orange level episodes of Alphablocks here.
This stage introduces the less common letters J, V, W, X, Y, Z and Q (and, naturally, qu). With the alphabet complete, it's time for lots of fun with simple words that use any letters.

It's a good idea to stick with the first two stages (red and orange) until your child is confident with all their letters and sounds and happy reading simple words. Watching and playing the same episodes repeatedly is very useful.

At this point, it's also a good idea to learn the letter names, which you can do with an alphabet song (and the ABC episode of Alphablocks).

Letter teams (digraphs) - yellow

You can find all of the yellow level episodes of Alphablocks here.
When your child is ready, it's time to meet the letter teams: letters that team up to make new sounds (such as CH, EE, OR). Teachers call these digraphs, which means 'two letters that make one sound'.

In Alphablocks, the characters fuse together to make digraphs, so it's easy to spot them. On the page, you can spot them by listening to the word (eg THAT) and breaking it down into the sounds it makes (th-a-t) to spot digraphs (th).

There are lots of digraphs. In this stage, children learn the starter set:
ch, sh, th, ng, ai, ee, oa, oo, ar, or, ur, ow, oi

There are trigraphs too (three letters that make one sound): igh, ear, air, ure.

When your child knows their letter teams well, it's time to move on.

Letter blends - green

You can find all of the green level episodes of Alphablocks here.
Often, consonants get together without making a new sound - they just blend their individual sounds together. For example, STOP starts with the two sounds 's' and 't', which blend together but don't make a new sound (unlike SH).

Teachers call these blends or consonant clusters. There are lots of them. Some come at the start of words (such as step, clap, frog and street). Some come at the end (such as e nd, ca ts, la mp and be st). Some words have blends at both ends (such as ble nd, sta mp and cra nk).

There's no special way to treat blends - simply blend the letter sounds in the word as normal. Getting to know them unlocks hundreds of new words and exciting stories.

Many words combine letter teams and letter blends (such as chi ps, flash, str ong). This stage is all about getting comfortable with blends and everything that's gone before, before taking the next step.

Long vowels - blue

You can find all of the blue level episodes of Alphablocks here.
This is a big step. Your child has already met some letter teams that make the long vowel sounds (ai, ee, igh, oa, oo) - now we learn that there is more than one way to make them.

You can make the long A sound (the same as its name) with the digraph ai ( sail) or with ay ( say). You can make the long E sound with ee ( bee) or with ea ( beat). And so on.

We also learn a new pattern: the words cake, Pete, mine, home and ruleall have long vowel sounds, but the letter teams are separated. Teachers call these split digraphs (a_e, e_e, i_e, o_e, u_e). In Alphablocks, the character Magic E teams up with another vowel with a magic beam that joins them and shows how they work together to make the sound.

Having learned that there is more than one way to make some sounds, it's time to discover that some letters make more than one sound. Y, who has so far been a consonant, springs into life as a vowel in words such as tr y, sh y and happ y. C and G make soft sounds in i ce and ca g e.

This goes for letter teams too: OW can make gl ow as well as c ow.

There are some more digraphs to meet too: wh, ph, au, aw, ir, ow, oy.

CVC words

CVC is short for 'consonant/vowel/consonant' - words such as mat, hen, big, fox, cup. These words are perfect for the early stages of reading (red and orange).

There are lots of them - but watch out for:

words that end in R, W or Y. They join up with the vowel to make letter teams (digraphs) with new sounds: c-ar, n-ow, t-oy and so on (yellow stage)

words with odd vowel sounds: put, son, ton, was and so on (blue stage)

Exception words

At every stage of learning to read, children master new phonics skills and patterns. Any word that doesn't fit what they already know is called an 'exception' word.

Many exception words are quite common and very useful: the, said, no, I, and so on. Your child's teacher will introduce them gradually, some at each stage.

You may also hear them called 'irregular', 'sight', 'red' or 'tricky' words. Common words are also known as 'high-frequency'.

The best way to read exception words together is to point out that the word is a bit unusual and sound out the different sounds: for example, said has the simple 's' sound, the tricky part ( ai) that makes an 'e' sound, and the simple 'd' sound.

The common exception words for each stage are:

RED - the, to, I, go, no, into
ORANGE - he, she
YELLOW - we, me, be, was, my, you, they, her, all, are
GREEN - said, so, have, like, some, come, were, there, little, one, do, when, out, what
BLUE - oh, their, people, Mr, Mrs, looked, called, asked, could

Many names are exception words! Young children are often delighted to discover that their name has special letters and sounds. For example, Lily has a y that makes an 'ee' sound. Ashok has s and h that team up to make a 'sh' sound. And so on.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Alphablocks - The Alphablocks guide to phonics

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Today, children are taught to read using phonics, which is all about the sounds that make up words. Children start by learning the letters and the sounds they make, and how to put them together to make and read simple words.

# data[].attributes.body
Games, songs and activities to support with reading at home

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Learning to Read for Kids | Learn to Read with Phonics | Free Trial

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Reading Eggs is the online reading program that helps children learn to read. Hundreds of online reading lessons, phonics games and books for ages 2–13. Start your free trial!

# data[].attributes.body
Access reading books and recommended reads here

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
With a library of activities and resources for every stage of the learning journey, curated by the team at Oxford University Press, we are here with inspiration to help your little ones learn, grow and flourish at home, in the classroom and beyond.

Just click on the sections in the menu to explore by subject, or use the options below to uncover content by age group.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Oxford Owl for Home: help your child learn at home - Oxford Owl

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Oxford Owl is packed with expert advice, tips and activities to help parents support their child's education. Help your child with reading, phonics and maths.

# data[].attributes.body
Find games to support with blending and recognising sounds

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A site packed with interactive phonics games, phonics planning, assessment ideas and many teaching ideas and resources to help children to learn to hear phonemes, recognise graphemes and develop the blending and segmenting skills that are vital for learning to read and spell.

# data[].attributes.body
What a load of nonsense!

# data[].attributes.body
Help understanding the links between all the sounds

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Match Sounds (Phase 1) - Online Phonics Game

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A fun online game with animal sounds that helps very young children develop the listening skills essential for success in a phonics-based reading programme.

# data[].attributes.body
Cut out the sounds, call them out, do you have the sound? Can you write a list of words using your sound?

# data[].attributes.body
Pick Phase 2 and read the words using your chosen sound

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Practise blending for reading

This tool is intended to support whole-class or small group phonics teaching or to support parents/carers when supporting their child at home.

Why use it?

You can watch the lips form the sounds.
You can share grapheme-phoneme correspondence, (ideal for sharing sounds with busy parents/carers).
You don't have to prepare your own decodable words, this game does it for you.

Instructions:

1. Choose a phase (Letters & Sounds) from the top of the sound chart/poster.

2. Choose a sound to teach/practise.

3. Wait for the pencil to write the grapheme.

4. When the flash card stops moving you can press the sound button to hear the phoneme.

5. The press on the '...' at the bottom of the card to see the grapheme in some words, (words taken from Letters & Sounds).

6. Press on the dots and dashes to blend the sounds.

7. 'Kiss goodbye' to the sounds/words when you want to remove them.

8. NB: You can't change sounds or phases until all words/sounds have been closed/kissed goodbye.

Have fun!
HAVING TROUBLE LOADING? Please try this version.

This game is © copyright 2020, J.Barrett, ictgames.com All Rights Reserved.

Made using the and libraries.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A tool to model phoneme-grapheme correspondence.

# data[].attributes.body
Pick CVCC/CCVC, pull the handle and read the words - Special Friends, Fred Talk, Read the Word

# data[].attributes.body
Pick a sound and read the CVC words

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
My account Contact us GDPR and Privacy Notice Terms and Conditions

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
My account Contact us GDPR and Privacy Notice Terms and Conditions

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
My account Contact us GDPR and Privacy Notice Terms and Conditions