Phonics for Pupils with Special Educational Needs, 2nd edition is a systematic, synthetic phonics programme designed for learners with additional needs, providing a fun and accessible resource for pupils with SEN of any age. The evidence-led programme offers a refreshingly simple and accessible approach to the teaching of phonics, breaking it down into manageable core elements and providing a wealth of accompanying activities. Each book in the series gradually builds on pupils’ understanding of sounds and letters and provides scaffolded support for children to learn about the speech sounds of the English language and their matching letters. The companion Teacher’s Manual includes thorough guidance on how to deliver the activities.

Activity Book 1: Building Basics, 2nd edition is the first book in the Phonics for Pupils with Special Educational Needs programme. Book 1 introduces the basic alphabetic code and explores the key skills associated with using it to read and spell simple words successfully. Fully revised, this 2nd edition focuses on the alphabetic principle that speech sounds (phonemes) in spoken words are represented by letters (graphemes) that are written down. The book explores sounds and letters where there is a simple 1:1 correspondence in words that follow the pattern of vowel-consonant or consonant-vowel-consonant.

Sounds are grouped into seven sets, with each set containing more than 45 engaging activities, centred on letter identification and formation, blending, segmenting, phoneme manipulation, reading and spelling single words, reading connected text, and much more. New activities include letter formation, dictation, fluency practice, sentence building and sound collector cards for retrieval practice. There are also lesson planners to support formal and semi-formal delivery, a movable alphabet, and infographics for both pupils and staff. For learners with a greater complexity of needs there is a suite of resourced strategies to enable access to the activities and programme materials.

This book is the first instalment of the basic code section of the Phonics for Pupils with SEN programme. Offering tried-and-tested material which can be printed for each use, this is an invaluable resource to simplify phonics teaching and support easy delivery for teachers, teaching assistants and tutors, and provides a fun, accessible way of teaching literacy for all children.