Phonic Books

Truly decodable books for beginner and catch-up readers. Phonic reading books for beginner and 'catch-up' readers

15/07/2025

☀️ Looking for tips to get your child reading over the summer?

Here are some simple pointers to get started:
📚 Ensure the books you choose for your beginners are decodable and match to the phonics your child has studied. Decodable books follow a step-by-step progression, ensuring your child succeeds at each level while learning the phonics needed to become a fluent reader.
📚 Make sure the books are age-appropriate. Our webpage contains some handy recommendations for beginner and older readers.
📚 Don’t make reading a chore. Many of our books contains a game that will consolidate your child’s learning in a fun way!

Find out more:
🌍 https://phonicbooks.co.uk/pages/how-to-use-our-books-beginner-readers
🇺🇸 https://phonicbooks.com/pages/how-to-use-our-books-beginner-readers

14/07/2025

Did you know that there are more than 500 different species of sharks in the world? 🦈

This , we're spotlighting our decodable Dandelion World book, Sharks Swimming.

The book is full of interesting shark facts for your beginner readers, and gives them the opportunity to practice blending and decoding two-syllable words and the suffix '-ing'.

Sharks Swimming is part of our non-fiction series, Dandelion World, which introduces alphabet letter sounds, double consonants, words with adjacent consonants and digraphs.
A special knowledge builder page is included in each book to grow students’ vocabulary and cultural capital.

Take a look at the full series:
🌍: https://phonicbooks.co.uk/collections/dandelion-world
🇺🇸: https://phonicbooks.com/collections/dandelion-world

12/07/2025

Looking to expand your class library collection? Take a look inside our Dandelion World Extras, Stage 8-15 series…

This is a set of 16 books that introduces adjacent consonants and consonant digraphs, while developing students' understanding of the world around them.

Aimed at children who need a little extra practice, the early books offer words with increasingly complex word structure, and later books introduce new sounds and spellings while supporting those previously taught. There are two books at each stage to reinforce learning.

Find out more:
🌍 https://www.phonicbooks.co.uk/product/dandelion-world-extras-stages-8-15/
🇺🇸 https://www.phonicbooks.com/product/dandelion-world-extras-stages-8-15/

11/07/2025

Learning to read is hard work. It is helpful to prepare students for reading a decodable book so that they experience success and enjoy their achievement.

Take a look at our routine for group work that prepares students for reading success.

Download from our website now:
🌍 https://phonicbooks.co.uk/blogs/article/group-work-routine-for-reading-a-decodable-book-in-class
🇺🇸 https://phonicbooks.com/blogs/article/group-work-routine-for-reading-a-decodable-book-in-class

09/07/2025

Older, struggling readers are less motivated to pick up a book and read. They need age-appropriate, engaging decodable books that provide an incremental progression that supports them to learn about the alphabetic code, practice key skills and improve their reading.

Our catch-up reader series are action-packed fantasy and adventure stories to captivate older readers. Every series has age-appropriate illustrations and storylines that older pupils aged 8-14+ can enjoy.

Learn more:
🌍 https://phonicbooks.co.uk/collections/catch-up-readers
🇺🇸 https://phonicbooks.com/collections/catch-up-readers

07/07/2025

Our Dandelion Card Games offer practice and consolidation of phonics skills for beginner readers.

Linked to our Dandelion series of readers and activities, these card games will enthuse and delight beginner readers as they learn to read.

Starting at CVC word level, the sets progressively introduce consonant digraphs and alternative spellings for vowel sounds.

There is also a word building set to encourage confidence in reading and spelling.

Find out more:
🌍 https://phonicbooks.co.uk/products/9780241684726-phonic-books-dandelion-card-games
🇺🇸 https://phonicbooks.com/products/9780593842799-phonic-books-dandelion-card-games

05/07/2025

Look through these infographics from our series about helping children learn to spell the high-frequency word "for" in four simple steps.

High-frequency words are the words which occur most frequently in writing, such as "the", "as" and "is".

These words are often decodable but contain sounds and spellings that do not appear until later in a phonics teaching sequence so are a challenge for young learners.

Segmenting the word, highlighting graphemes, and associating familiar words with the sound are great ways to help children learn to spell high-frequency words.

Download for free to print and use in the classroom:
🌍 https://phonicbooks.co.uk/products/high-frequency-words-for
🇺🇸 https://phonicbooks.com/products/high-frequency-words-for

04/07/2025

The National Literacy Trust has just published its report on children and young people’s reading in 2025.

Their annual survey of nearly 115,000 children and young people found that the number who say that they enjoy reading, and the number who read daily in their free time, was the lowest in 20 years.

Few children and young people felt that easy access to books, hearing friends or family talk about reading, or taking part in book groups or discussions had an impact on their reading. As motivators, these are more relevant to already engaged readers; meaning that they might not work as strategies to engage less confident readers.

However, 2 in 5 children and young people were motivated to read when the material related to a favourite film or TV series, or matched their interests or hobbies. Also, even among those saying that they don’t enjoy reading, many still choose to read in their free time - particularly song lyrics, news articles, fiction, comics and fan fiction.

These findings suggest that re-engagement is possible, especially if we personalise reading opportunities around interests, allow autonomy in reading choice, and create better links between reading and other media.

Read the full report:
https://literacytrust.org.uk/research-services/research-reports/children-and-young-peoples-reading-in-2025/

02/07/2025

Looking for resources to teach split vowel spellings? Our Dandelion World non-fiction books are here to help.

The Dandelion World Split Vowel Spellings (VCe) set of six fully decodable non-fiction books is aimed at children aged 4 to 7, who are learning the spellings a-e, e-e, i-e, o-e, and u-e.

Accompanied by engaging spelling and comprehension activities, each text focuses on one split vowel spelling, with the final book including a mixture.

Designed to consolidate phonics knowledge and build confidence, these books also engage readers who love non-fiction books and want to find out about the world around them.

Find out more:
🌍 https://ow.ly/PajF50Wigaq
🇺🇸 https://ow.ly/bH9C50Wigap

28/06/2025

With NAEP scores showing a decline in reading proficiency, summer school is more important than ever for providing support to older, struggling readers.

Phonic Books' decodable books can help.

⭐️ Phonic Books catch-up series support children aged 8-14+ with truly decodable, age-appropriate texts, including engaging illustrations and storylines to capture older students' interest
⭐️ Each reader set follows a systematic scope and sequence and can supplement any structured literacy curriculum. Check out the scope and sequence alignments: https://randomhouse.app.box.com/s/384a9aknuamodxwu8fm412f1l5mcqnlc
⭐️ Implementation is easy with instructional manuals that provide structured lesson guidance, and photocopiable activity books that provide reinforcement of learned skills

Learn more:
🌍 https://phonicbooks.co.uk/collections/catch-up-readers
🇺🇸 https://phonicbooks.com/collections/catch-up-readers

27/06/2025

Dictation is a great way to get children to link reading and spelling in a controlled activity. It is an encoding exercise that encourages learners to translate the sounds they can hear into the symbols they have learnt to associate with those sounds. As they do this, they learn that letters spell sounds in words (the Alphabetic Principle).

To run a dictation activity, ask the child to listen to the sentence read from the list, repeat it out loud and then write it down. You can break the sentence into smaller chunks if required. Check what the learner has written and show them how the sound and letters correspond.

Take note of words with dots and dashes - these are high-frequency words that may require more support.

Download the resource from our website:
🌍 https://phonicbooks.co.uk/products/dictation-sentences-cvc-words-and-double-consonants
🇺🇸 https://phonicbooks.com/products/dictation-sentences-cvc-words-and-double-consonants-2

25/06/2025

'Where', 'were', 'we're', 'wear' look and sound similar... We have a helpful classroom resource that unpacks the difference between these tricky words.

1) Where = place or position
2) Were = plural past tense form of 'be'
3) We're = contraction for we are
4) Wear = relates to clothing

Get your copy of the infographic:
🌍: https://phonicbooks.co.uk/products/spelling-mix-ups-where-were-were-wear-1
🇺🇸: https://phonicbooks.com/products/spelling-mix-ups-where-were-were-wear-1

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http://www.phonicbooks.co.uk/

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Our Story

Phonic Books Ltd is a small company specialising in publishing decodable books for beginner and catch-up readers.

The company was founded in 2006 by Wendy Tweedie, Tami Reis-Frankfort and Clair Baker, three special needs teachers passionate about teaching all children to read. Using their expertise they set about developing phonic reading books for young children and older, struggling readers.

Following demand from customers, the range has extended from the initial 10 titles to over 298 today and is continuing to grow. The range of books caters for pupils in Nursery and Foundation Stage to Age 14+ reluctant readers in secondary school.