Narrative driven, multi-sensory phonics

Narrative driven

Through our original series of storybooks set in the Phonics Shed garden with Joe as a guide, children are introduced to the first 40 most commonly-used high-frequency words and all 44 phonemes of the English language. Each storybook introduces a new character and its associated grapheme phoneme correspondence (GPC) allowing children to develop in their phonics attainment as they get to know the Phonics Shed characters and progress through the series.

Our read-aloud teaching book series comprises 120 stories which are supplied in physical form as part of our Phonics Shed packs and also available digitally via our websites to display on interactive whiteboards or via screen-share for remote teaching.

In addition to our narrative storybook series, we have a set of decodable reading books which spans the programme’s range. In these stories, many familiar characters appear but the words are strictly limited to those that are either decodable by the current stage of learning or are explicitly teachable as partially decodable words.

Multi-sensory teaching programme

Our scheme provides a multi-sensory systematic progression through synthetic phonics beginning with sound-making and early reading at pre-school, through the requirements of the Year 1 phonics screening check and onto our complementary Spelling Shed scheme.

Each lesson includes:

• A full lesson plan
• A storybook, including a new character per GPC
• Grapheme flashcards for recall which also include letter formation phrases for both lower-case and capital letters
• Songs relating to the character and following a familiar tune
• An action relating to the character or sound
• A selection of activities to initiate early writing

It is the combination of these elements that makes our scheme so powerful. The combination of our systematic approach with so many different "hooks" into learning means children's learning is accelerated.

Supported by technology

Our scheme is a classroom teaching resource strongly supported by online games, resources and tools. Our narrative book series and decodable books, lesson plans, guidance documents and training videos are available in digital formats which will allow teachers to display them on a variety of devices, including interactive whiteboards and screencasts, for in-school or at-home learning.

Our planning links to a series of new and original games. The games include the nine key pre-school areas from Chapter 1, such as our online body percussion game. Games support the learning progression through each phase (or chapter) with the game sequences progressing and supporting learning of each grapheme-phoneme correspondence in a variety of ways. Children can access the games as part of in-class phonics teaching, and as independent online activities which can be played in school or at home.

Assessment & data

As part of all Phonics Shed subscriptions, we provide an easy to use assessment tool that acts as a screening for phonics knowledge. The assessment process extends to alien words and gives detailed reporting to enable teachers to identify gaps in pupils' phonics knowledge.

Our digital games add another layer of data to the assessment profile, as all in-game responses are automatically marked and populate an intuitive reporting dashboard, allowing teachers to set personalised online tasks or follow up with one-to-one or small group interventions.