“Hello! Here are some tips for flexible use of our fantastic ‘Teeny Reading Seeds’ resources (co-created with Rachel Hornsey) and our delightful ‘Phonics and Talk Time’ resources. You can simply decide what to use that is most helpful in your context – whether at home or in a nursery or pre-school setting.
My approach to phonics provision is ‘Two-pronged systematic AND incidental teaching and learning’ – the rationale underpinning my three DfE-validated phonics programmes. [To see the full breadth of the work of Phonics International Limited, go to: SyntheticPhonics.com ]
I also recommend this ‘Two-pronged systematic AND incidental’ approach for introducing alphabet letters and their first ‘sounds’ for nursery children (age 3+).
[Please note: Our nursery resources are NOT full phonics programmes, they provide an ‘introduction’ to letters and sounds PRIOR to a fully-planned phonics programme required for home-schooling or in schools.]
My NO-pressure, highly-recommended ethos for early years provision is: ‘Exposure, experience but NO expectation’! What do I mean by this when educators always refer to having HIGH expectations? Our aim is to support parents and professional educators to introduce a lot of learning and new concepts to these very young learners in a pressure-free way, appreciating that the children will pick-up and absorb the information and skills according to their individual capacity – in the same way that they learn other things in life through plenty of ‘exposure and experience’ – including masses of lovely chatter! You’re just providing some fun foundations for the journey they will continue in schools or home-schooling (with full, systematic phonics programmes) to learn the most complex alphabetic code in the world!”
Go to the short explanatory video at: AlphabeticCodeCharts.com to learn about the complexities of the English Alphabetic Code and hear all the ‘sounds’ via the audio chart.
Teeny Reading Seeds
This extensive range of printable/projectable FREE resources introduces alphabet letters linked to their sounds – use in ANY ORDER as required. If it is Pancake Day, for example, dip into the resources that feature P p /p/ activities. If it is Katy’s birthday, dip into the resources for K k /k/ activities. You can also use these resources in a ‘systematic’ alphabetical order (Aa, Bb, Cc) – whilst still dipping into resources ‘incidentally’ to feature any letters and sounds for your topical themes and special events. You decide! An example of planning and full guidance is provided for the Teeny Reading Seeds resources.
Phonics and Talk Time
– available as FREE printable/projectable pdfs AND as hard copy ‘to buy’ resources.
The two, consecutive Phonics and Talk Time books are designed to be ‘systematic’ and ‘cumulative’ featuring alphabet letters and sounds in ‘alphabetical order’. Both books cover Aa to Zz letter shapes and sounds. They include cumulative ‘say the sounds and words’ activities and full-page illustrations to provide examples of speaking and listening activities linked to phonics. The ‘oral blending’ phonics sub-skill of reading (decoding) OF ANY SOUNDS (not just limited to the first sounds introduced with alphabet letters) is featured in Book 1, and the ‘oral segmenting’ phonics sub-skill of spelling (encoding) OF ANY SOUNDS is added and featured in Book 2. These oral blending and oral segmenting activities tune the child’s ‘ear’ into all the smallest sounds (phonemes) readily distinguishable in English speech. This develops the ‘phonemic awareness’ necessary for reading and spelling in English. Explicit guidance is provided in both Book 1 and Book 2. See the Powerpoint HERE for further information.
Early Years teachers requested a Frieze featuring the Phonics and Talk Time characters, and Flash Cards for groups of children – so we developed our ‘Phonics and Talk Time Frieze Set’. This set includes BOTH ‘Alphabet Frieze Sheets’ (A4 one-sided paper for wall display or ‘browse books’ and ‘Alphabet Cards’ (26 A4 double-sided matt laminated cards for adult-led introduction to the content – further uses include creating a ‘browse book’ and building up a set of cards for children’s play).
You can view the Phonics and Talk Time resources that are available to buy in hard copy (ready-made) to evaluate them via our ebookshelf – AND you can also project this content onto plain walls or whiteboards to show the children.
Debbie Hepplewhite’s Alphabet and Phonics Matching Cards
This pack of 52 cards (playing-card sized and playing-card quality) features all the Phonics and Talk Time characters and key picture-words, linked to capital and lower case letter shapes and illustrating letter formation on writing lines. Various matching games and activities can be played with these cards – step by step – eventually modelling the process of ‘making and breaking’ simple words for reading and spelling activities when the time is right!
Lead Practitioner for the Early Years, Emily Kenny, writes about her findings following the introduction of the Phonics and Talk Time resources and approach for the nursery children (3+ to 4):
“… this is the first time we have completed A-Z in an academic year and where we have started in September. Throughout the year, the children’s listening, engagement, LOVE of learning and their knowledge of sounds, letter formation, blending and segmenting has been incredible!” (July 2025)