Growing Children into Reading Heroes with the Power of Phonics. Proven to be the most effective method to get every child reading and spelling.
Phonics Hero looks just like a game for children with quality graphics, technology and entertainment appeal; but at its core is Synthetic Phonics. Try us out, with a free trial for parents: https://www.phonicshero.com/parents-sign-up/
Or a teacher's free account: https://www.phonicshero.com/teachers-sign-up/
27/05/2026
Teaching children to match upper and lower case? Try this. 🙌
Split your class in two. One half gets an uppercase letter card. The other half gets the matching lowercase.
No talking. No calling out.
They have to move around the room and silently find their partner.
Great fun!
Do you know the 3 essential phonemic awareness skills? They’re the big three every early reader needs:
1️⃣ Segmenting – “cat” → /c/ /a/ /t/
2️⃣ Blending – /d/ /o/ /g/ → “dog”
3️⃣ Phoneme manipulation – change the /c/ in “cat” to /b/ → “bat”
🎥 Watch our 3 superstar kiddos demonstrate them in action!
20/05/2026
Musical chairs just got a phonics upgrade. 🎵
Give each child their own grapheme card, e.g. f, s, t, n, l.
The chairs have the alternative spellings cards stuck on, so in this example: ff, ss, tt, nn, ll.
When the music stops, they find their matching chair.
A really fun way to solidify the link between the spelling choices.
17/05/2026
🗣️ ESL pronunciation struggles? Don’t panic.
Take a word like “squirrel” 🐿️ — tricky to pronounce with all those consonant clusters and the r–l combo.
But here’s the thing: children don’t need to say it perfectly to read it.
💡 Pronunciation is the output, not the process.
It’s sound discrimination and decoding that build reading confidence.
🚨 Free resource alert:
Boggle for spelling! ✍️ Challenge your students to create as many words as they can from the grid of letters. Add a timer for extra suspense and engagement!⏱️ Download our ready-made Boggle template and watch your students transform into word wizards! 🧙♂️
Download here:https://cache.phonicshero.com/wp-content/uploads/Phonics-Boggle.pdf
12/05/2026
😴 Bored, bored, bored!
How do you extend your advanced students? 🎓
Firstly, don't give them the same words as their peers; if mastery has already been demonstrated, it's unbelievably boring, time-consuming and frustrating and can result in badly behaved children! Here's how you can add depth and breadth to your phonics lessons:
https://phonicshero.com/extension_phonics/
30/04/2026
🎨 Introducing split digraphs? Try this colourful activity!
🔠 List plenty of split digraph examples - home, cake, bike, rule…
🟩 Ask students to colour the vowel team one colour and the consonant splitter another.
🔗 Then have them draw a curved link between the two vowels to show they’re still working together!
A simple visual that makes the logic of split digraphs click. 💡
28/04/2026
Refrigerator Writing 🧲 ✍️
Give your child a whiteboard marker and let them play “teacher” on the fridge. Write words, practise sounds, leave silly messages - all low-pressure writing fun.
🥴 Why can children read words… but freeze on sentences? Here’s what’s really going on...and how to fix it.
Read our latest blog post: https://phonicshero.com/sentence-reading-fluency/
23/04/2026
Some children arrive at school already writing in capitals. It seems harmless - but it creates a problem you'll have to fix later.
Once the habit is set, you're not just teaching lowercase. You're asking them to unlearn uppercase.
Unlearning is harder than learning.
It's why so many older students still scatter capitals through their writing. The habit stuck.
Lowercase from the start. Every time. 💪
