Letters and Sounds
We decided to closely align our programme with the Letters and Sounds framework since this is already very familiar to many teachers. Time for Phonics follows broadly the same progression and uses the same language as Letters and Sounds - with some additions and tweaks that we felt were helpful - so therefore offers familiarity, fidelity and consistency.
The benefits of closely following the original Letters and Sounds framework is that lots of fantastic decodable books have already been published and are aligned with the order of progression. As long as they follow our order of progression and you have checked that each book is decodable at the correct phonics stage, you can use your existing reading books alongside our programme though they may need recategorising in line with the current guidelines. If in doubt, and you find e.g. a word with a phase 5 sound in a phase 3 book, recategorise that book as phase 5.
Our perfectly aligned decodable texts
You can now use our decodable texts, which align perfectly with our teaching progression. These also come in printed mini-book format in each week's lesson resource folder under the "guided reading" sub-folder. These can be used both for guided reading sessions, but also for sending home with children to read at home. You can also make the ebooks available to children via your online learning platform, should parents wish to access them.
Explore the free decodable text progression below.
Matching other books to Time for Phonics
For more detailed information, read our guidance on how to align decodable books to our phonics programme.
You may already have existing physical books - please don't throw these away, but use them with caution.
It is hugely important that children are reading texts that are matched to the GPCs and tricky words they have been taught to date. This will allow them to use their phonic knowledge to decode words and develop reading fluency.
The Reading Framework (2021) clearly states that that children must be given books that match their phonics progression and therefore if you choose not to use our decodable texts, or supplement them with your existing physical books, they must introduce new GPCs in the same order as our progression so children can practise GPCs they have already learned. The tricky words must also follow the same progression. Even if the books you have follow the Letters and Sounds progression, they still need to be organised to ensure they match with our progression. The books should also be classed as 'decodable' and should not contain words that cannot be decoded, unless those words have been taught as tricky words of course.
Children should be able to read these books with 90% fluency before they are assigned to them, so it's important to choose and organise them carefully.
You may wish to share books with children that are of special interest to them, that are not decodable - it's great to encourage this, as long as they are not being practised as reading books.
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