Reading foundations
Phonics & Reading Resources
Find the right phonics or reading support by learning stage, practice need, or the difficulty you can see. Start with a guide, move into focused practice, or use a problem pathway when your child is stuck.
Learn the pathway
01Understand what to teach next
Follow the reading progression from phonics foundations into blending and early decoding.
Practise the skill
02Use focused practice
Choose a short activity that matches the skill your child is currently learning.
Solve a problem
03Start with the difficulty you see
Use the closest reading concern to find the most relevant explanation and next step.
Interactive phonics utility
Break a word into stored sound chunks
Search the starter bank, see the exact grapheme-to-sound map, and play each available recording. The tool never guesses an unknown word from spelling.
Matching stored words
74 explicit starter word maps · human-review status remains pending · no automatic word-page publishing.
Selected word
ship
The boxes show stored sound-spelling chunks. Some spellings, such as qu or x, can represent more than one phoneme.
Meaning
a large boat that travels on water
Example
The ship sailed across the sea.
Phonics note
SH is one grapheme representing one consonant sound.
These buttons play isolated stored sound cues. Tiny Steps does not join isolated clips and label that result as natural whole-word blending; whole-word audio is a separate future layer.
Focused phonics guides
Learn one spelling or sound pattern clearly
Browse by pattern family, then open the exact guide your child needs. Every published phonics guide remains reachable directly from this hub as the library grows.
Spelling rules
Use explicit spelling generalisations with clear boundaries, contrasts and exceptions.
CK rule: when to use ck
In many one-syllable words, ck is used for /k/ immediately after a single short vowel, as in back, neck, sick, rock and duck. It is a useful spelling generalisation, not an exception-free law.
Floss rule: ff, ll, ss and zz
In many one-syllable words with one short vowel, final f, l, s or z is doubled, as in puff, hill, miss and buzz. The Floss rule is a useful generalisation with exceptions.
CH vs TCH spelling
TCH commonly spells the /ch/ sound immediately after a single short vowel in a one-syllable word, as in match. CH also spells that sound, and familiar exceptions such as much and rich need explicit practice.
Consonant patterns
Explore consonant digraphs and context-sensitive consonant spellings as connected sound-pattern families.
QU sound pattern
In many common English words, q is followed by u and the pair commonly represents /kw/, as in queen, quit and quiz. Less common exceptions can be added after the frequent pattern is secure.
CH digraph
In early phonics, ch is commonly taught as one grapheme representing /ch/ in words such as chat, chip and much. Less common pronunciations can be introduced later.
KN and the silent K
In familiar words beginning with kn, the spelling represents /n/: knot sounds like not. Children can recognise the written pair while attending to the single initial sound.
NG digraph
N and g frequently work together as the grapheme ng, representing /ng/ in words such as sing, ring and long.
SH digraph
The letters s and h frequently work together as the digraph sh, representing /sh/ in words such as ship, shop and fish.
TH: voiced and voiceless
TH commonly represents two related sounds: voiceless /th/ as in thin and voiced /th/ as in this. Children benefit from hearing and feeling the contrast.
Soft C and hard C
C commonly represents /k/ in cat and cup, but often represents /s/ before e, i or y, as in cent, city and cycle. The e-i-y clue is useful but not exception-free.
Soft G and hard G
G commonly represents hard /g/ as in game, but often represents /j/ before e, i or y, as in gem and giant. The context clue is useful but has exceptions.
J sound: J, G and DGE
The /j/ sound can be represented by several spellings, including j, soft g and dge in different contexts. Reading the sound is only part of the job; spelling requires learning the pattern and position.
Vowel patterns
Compare vowel teams, r-controlled vowels and alternate vowel patterns without assuming one spelling always maps to one sound.
AI vowel team
AI commonly represents long a in words such as rain, train and paint. It is often found inside a word, while other long-a spellings appear in other positions, so position is a useful tendency rather than an absolute rule.
EA vowel team
EA is variable. It often represents long e as in team and seat, but also appears with other pronunciations such as head and break. Teach a selected high-frequency pattern first, then add contrast sets.
EE vowel team
EE commonly represents long e in words such as green, feet and sleep. Children should learn ee as one grapheme and then compare it with other long-e spellings as pattern knowledge grows.
IE vowel team
IE appears in more than one pronunciation pattern. Children can first learn a selected long-i set such as pie and tie, then later contrast other common ie words rather than forcing one pronunciation onto every spelling.
OA vowel team
OA commonly represents long o in words such as boat, coat and road. Teaching it as one grapheme helps children blend efficiently and compare it later with other long-o spellings.
Magic E / silent-e
In many vowel-consonant-e words, final e is not pronounced as a separate syllable and the earlier vowel represents a long sound, as in cap/cape, kit/kite and hop/hope. Common exceptions such as have and give should be taught explicitly.
ER, IR and UR
ER, IR and UR often represent a similar r-controlled vowel sound in words such as her, bird and turn. Reading can be easier than spelling because the same sound has several common spellings.
R-controlled AR
In r-controlled patterns, the vowel and following r work together. AR is common in words such as car, star and farm, so children should recognise ar as a pattern rather than apply the ordinary short-a rule.
R-controlled OR
OR is a common r-controlled spelling pattern in words such as fork, storm and short. Children should process the vowel-plus-r pattern as a unit instead of applying short o first.
Y as a vowel
Y can represent vowel sounds when it occupies a vowel position in a word, as in my, happy and gym. Children benefit from learning the position and word pattern rather than being told that y is only a consonant.
AU and AW
AU and AW commonly represent a similar vowel sound in words such as haul and saw. The sound alone does not always determine which grapheme to write, so children need spelling-family experience.
OI and OY
OI and OY commonly represent the same vowel sound. OI is often found inside a word, as in coin, while OY often appears at the end, as in boy. Position is a useful spelling tendency, not an absolute rule.
OO: moon vs book
OO commonly appears with more than one pronunciation, including the sound in moon and the shorter sound in book. Children should learn the patterns in contrast sets rather than force every oo word into one family.
OU and OW
OU and OW can represent the /ow/ sound in words such as out and cow, but both spellings also appear in other pronunciation patterns. Early teaching should use a controlled /ow/ set first, then add alternatives explicitly.
UI vowel sound
UI represents /oo/ in fruit, suit and juice. Other ui words, such as build, use a different pronunciation, so teach a selected family rather than one pronunciation for every adjacent u and i.
Word structure
Move beyond single-syllable decoding with syllable, ending and stress-related word-structure patterns.
Consonant-LE / Monster LE
In many words, a final consonant plus le forms a stable final syllable, as in table, little and purple. Recognising the chunk also prevents children from applying the Magic E explanation to every final-e word.
Rabbit Rule
Tiny Steps uses the Rabbit Rule for the common two-syllable pattern where a consonant is doubled between vowels, helping keep the first vowel short, as in rabbit. It is a useful syllable-and-spelling pattern, not a rule for every two-syllable word.
SHUN sound family
The /shun/ ending appears in several spelling families, including common endings such as -tion and -sion. Children should learn these as word-ending patterns linked to vocabulary and morphology, not as a one-to-one rule.
Schwa / lazy vowel
In many unstressed syllables, a vowel can reduce toward schwa, a weak neutral vowel sound. This helps explain why spelling cannot always be recovered from careful pronunciation alone in longer words.
Need teacher-led support?
Resources first. Live phonics support when you need it.
If a guide or activity is not enough, explore the live phonics programme or use the free assessment to check the best starting level.