The Synthetic Phonics Decodable Practice Books

Get Children Geared Up for the Year 1 Phonics Screening Check

Have a look inside a Practice Book and see how they prepare children for the year 1 phonics screening check:

• The books include high frequency words, e.g. 'sit' and 'man', and many unusual words, e.g.'din' and 'nip' which, for many children, may as well be non-words! By including more unusual words we ensure a child isn’t relying on recognising the word. Remember, words like ‘man’ will have been seen lots in the stories and many children will simply recognise them.
• There are no picture clues. It’s no use having a picture of a man next to the word ‘man’. No reading is involved in guessing from that picture!
• They start at the word level. Children don't read sentences right away; start at the word level and, when phonics skills are firmly embedded, move onto the more complicated skills involved in reading sentences.

Why Practice Books Before a Decodable Story?

Think about the decodable stories you use and ask yourself:

• How many opportunities are children getting to practice a particular set of phonemes?
• How wide is the vocabulary? Has the range of vocabulary been limited for the sake of a story that makes sense? 
• What knowledge of basic punctuation is needed? Do children know what to do when they see a full stop, comma, speech marks?
• How many tricky words are children expected to know before they can read the story?

The Practice Books have 35% wider vocabulary and 25% more opportunities for practice than the decodable stories on the market!

Request free samples of the Practice Books here