The Phonics Handbook: A Handbook for Teaching Reading, Writing and Spelling (Jolly Phonics)

I bought this book for my son who was very interested in letters and reading but was not really learning to read in nursery - i must say it's really really good. Great advice about how to approach teaching, lots of printables, colouring pages, things to stick in workbooks, tricky words - we had great fun, and very straight forward for people who're not professional teachers. This book has more than enough material that you won't need to buy anything else, but we liked it so much we bought the workbooks too.

I now use it with my second child and i'm looking to move up to the grammer handbook for my eldest.

My son has just turned 4 and loves learning his letters now! This is a really easy way to teach the letter sounds with actions and then how to blend them together. I am proud to say he made the word SPIT from the first six letters he has learnt so far!

My son is now in year 2 and honestly everything is only just falling into place. I bought this book earlier this year to help him with blended sounds and a few letters that he was still getting muddled with. There are so many activities and wonderful sheets in this book to use that he was unusually motivated. I have started right from the start with my other son who has just turned 3. He is already great with 's' and 'a' and I hope to very slowly go through the letter sounds part of the book in the 2 years before he goes to school.

My son's pre-school introduced the jolly phonics system to him at the age of 4. I couldn't believe that almost immediately he was recognising letters everywhere we went. After a little chat with the pre-school supervisor I decided to purchase the book for myself.

It contains black and white line drawings for each letter sound (42 in total) which can be photocopied and coloured in. On each page it gives an action for the sound and space to practice writing the letters.

Children have great fun doing the actions for each letter.

I have made posters from the pictures which I have put up on the wall to remind my son of what he has learnt and to encourage my younger daughter's interest.

A year later my son can now read and write many words and phrases.

This is a must for schools and parents and a great way for you to encourage your child to learn (and you can always have some fun with colouring and doing the actions too).

It works. That's all you really need know. It really works. Children learn the phonic sounds effortlessly in a way that allows them to actually USE what they have learned in reading and writing. And it progressively teaches them strategies first for getting things down on paper, and then moving towards a more regularised way of writing. I am a Year 1 teacher, and my class have learned incredibly quickly what they didn't manage to learn in the Reception class, who are beginning to use it now as well, thank goodness! It is fun, effective, and I truly believe that all Reception classes should be using this.