Children learn a group of sounds, and learn to associate each sound with a letter or group of letters.

Here children are swatting the flies to learn the first eight sounds: s, m, t, c, g, p, a, o.

Children then learn to blend (or glue) the sounds together to read unknown words.

Here children have to blend each word to read the word and help the ghost find his tree!

Next children are taught to listen for the sounds in a word and to represent each sound with a letter or letters. The child says the word  'pot' and identifies that they can hear a 'p' sound which is represented by the letter 'P', an 'o' sound represented by the letter 'O', and so on...

With each correct answer, watch Giraffe's neck grow for the yummy ice cream!

Irregular, high frequency words, such as 'the' and 'was' are tricky to read but are essential to learn because they occur so often in children's books. At Phonics Hero we call these camera words.

Here children read the camera words to help the witch make her magic potion.

Children learn to spell these irregular, high frequency words so they can move onto writing sentences.

Here, children are spelling camera words to slime the babysitter!

We put all these skills together to read sentences and stories, and to begin developing a love for reading!

Here, children read the sentences to help herd the cows.