Literacy and Phonics

Help your child to read

Learning to read is one of the most important skills a child can learn and one we don't take for granted. We're passionate about helping every child to learn to read and develop a love of reading that will carry them through their life of learning.

Take a look at our free guides and resources to help you support your child with literacy.

Are you a teacher?

Discover a world of free support, guidance and tried-and-tested resources, including our bug-club reading programme.

Discover primary school support

Free activities and tools for parents during school closure

Guides to phonics

We've created a straightforward guide to supporting phonics learning at home, with a progression chart to show you the order in which phonic sounds are taught in school and an FAQs document.

A guide to supporting phonics at home

Phonics progression chart

FAQs

Enjoy reading with your child

As parents, we all want the best for our children. We’re probably all aware that it’s important to make sure they are confident, fluent readers who enjoy reading, but often it’s hard to know where to start. Should you read to your baby? What can you do to help get your children familiar with words and reading before they go to school? And how do you help them progress at school when the teaching is different nowadays?

We've created a guide to reading with children, which we hope will help answer all your questions and give you advice on helping struggling readers.

Download guide (PDF | 4.6 MB)

Front cover of Enjoy Reading: A guide to reading at home

Supporting children with SEND

We're aware that school closures will have particular concerns for parents of children with special education needs (SEND).

We have created a guide for supporting children with SEND, with strategies to help you support your child at home and guidance on using our Rapid series for struggling readers.

Download your guide to SEND and reading

My Twist On A Tale competition

On International Literacy Day, we launched our My Twist on a Tale writing competition for its second year! This free competition, now open to four- to 19-year-olds across the UK, will encourage young people to let their imagination run wild as they write a story based on our new theme for 2020: Everyday Heroes.

Learn more