Phonics Hero

Still teaching one sound a week?

At that pace, blending & segmenting can get stuck in slow motion. 🐢

⚡ Try 3–4 sounds a week and watch progress take off! 🚀

Is your child ready to start blending?

One piece of advice: don't get out the books yet! 📚🚫 Get your child to physically grasp the concept of blending by bashing, smashing or squishing — to help them clear the first major hurdle.

> Bash the cars together 🚗🚕
> Join the magnetic letters 🅰️🅱️
> Squish together the play dough 🟣 🟠
> Get the teddies to hold hands 🧸🧸

Tap each item as you say the sounds, then swipe your hand across them to say the whole word.

🧩 Should you group kids by ability — or go whole-class?

📊 Grouping can limit progress, especially if the least experienced staff are with the children who need the most expertise.
🤔 Are we putting a ceiling on their potential?
📚 Whole-class teaching supports a consistent pace, with targeted catch-up for those who need it.

What’s working in your phonics classroom?

Teaching children to match upper and lower case? Try this. 🙌

Split your class in two. One half gets an uppercase letter card. The other half gets the matching lowercase.

No talking. No calling out.

They have to move around the room and silently find their partner.

Great fun!

Musical chairs just got a phonics upgrade. 🎵

Give each child their own grapheme card, e.g. f, s, t, n, l.

The chairs have the alternative spellings cards stuck on, so in this example: ff, ss, tt, nn, ll.

When the music stops, they find their matching chair.

A really fun way to solidify the link between the spelling choices.

🗣️ ESL pronunciation struggles? Don’t panic.

Take a word like “squirrel” 🐿️ — tricky to pronounce with all those consonant clusters and the r–l combo.

But here’s the thing: children don’t need to say it perfectly to read it.

💡 Pronunciation is the output, not the process.

It’s sound discrimination and decoding that build reading confidence.

😴 Bored, bored, bored!

How do you extend your advanced students? 🎓

Firstly, don't give them the same words as their peers; if mastery has already been demonstrated, it's unbelievably boring, time-consuming and frustrating and can result in badly behaved children! Here's how you can add depth and breadth to your phonics lessons:

https://phonicshero.com/extension_phonics/