Langley Park School for Boys is a large 11–18 academy in Beckenham, England. The school is one of four secondary schools in Impact Academy Trust which recently took part in a Year 7 reading intervention trial using DK Phonic Books catch-up readers and resources. The DfE’s Reading Framework, published in July 2023, highlights the importance…
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The founders of Phonic Books are dyslexia trained reading specialists who taught in a dyslexia centre in London. When they began to publish decodable books, they wanted to include features that would help their students learn to read. They found that there was a lack of engaging and structured reading materials to consolidate the phonics…
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“These decodables are the perfect addition to our ever evolving collection.” My name is Jessica Berg and this is my 3rd year serving as the instructional coach at Ellis Elementary. Ellis Elementary is one of 25 elementary schools in Rockford School District 205. We are an urban school with over 400 students K-5. We have…
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How to help students who struggle with b/d reversal Do you have students who really struggle with reversing the letters b and d? Reading specialist, Savannah Campbell, has some practical tips to help with this common issue. If you’re an elementary school teacher, it is likely you share the same problem as millions of other…
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What do we mean by “sound it out” and what does it entail? When a child gets stuck on a word we often remind them to “sound it out”. As fluent readers, we assume this is very straightforward. We recognize these words automatically and skip all the stages that beginner readers need to go through…
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On February 10th, to celebrate Black History month, the first Buffalo Sabres Literacy Hub was opened at the Stanley Makowski Early Childhood Centre in Buffalo Public School #99. Phonic Books is proud to have participated in the opening of this hub alongside other publishers of decodable books. This wonderful initiative was set up by Teach…
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In this final instalment of a series of guest blogs, Nora Chahbazi, literacy consultant (pro bono) via the John Corcoran foundation to The Truth About Reading documentary team and Founder of EBLI, talks about the impact of the documentary and offers insight into the making of the film. I was honored to be at the first private screening of The…
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During mental health week, we think it is important to highlight the link between mental health and illiteracy. Illiteracy causes poor life outcomes, poverty leading to crime, depression and poor health. The Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychological Therapies of the University of East Anglia (UEA) have just reported on the global problem of poor…
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We all want our children to find learning to read exciting and enjoyable, but what happens when they get stuck? Should we be quick to help, or wait and let them figure it out themselves? With the help of a set of building blocks, literacy specialist, Savannah Campbell, explains how we can encourage productive struggling.…
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Systematic Phonics programs now talk of ‘consonant blends’ or ‘adjacent consonants’, but what are they? Why is it that the letters ‘bl’ in the word ‘black’ are adjacent consonants while ‘ck’ are not? Speech and language therapist, Hema Desai explains the difference and suggests fun, multisensory activities to embed learning. As a speech and language…
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