How Phonics Land works

For grown-ups. This is the whole picture: the six phonics phases, what is inside the app, and how it helps your child learn to read. Your child does not need to read any of this — their own page is for tapping and playing.

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What are the six phases? 🗺️

Phonics is a step-by-step journey with six stops. First we train our ears, then we learn letter sounds, then letters that team up, then we build bigger words, discover new spellings, and finally spell and read like an author. Tap any phase to jump straight in!

Every age has a phase

Nursery starts at Phase 1, Reception explores Phases 2–4, Year 1 discovers Phase 5, and Year 2 finishes with Phase 6.

Listen first, letters later

Strong readers start with strong ears — sounds and rhymes come before any letters appear.

Small steps, big wins

Each phase builds on the last one — finish all six and you can read almost anything!

Our learning adventure 🎬

Press play to watch our story, then scroll on to see the whole journey in pictures:

Speed:

A friendly teacher welcomes children with floating letter blocks — 1 · A warm welcome 👋Your teacher greets you and the letters come alive.

Six colourful phonics islands on a friendly sea — 2 · Six phase islands 🏝️One island for every phase of the phonics journey.

A child taps a glowing letter card and hears the sound — 3 · Tap, listen, say it back 🔊Every sound plays aloud — then you say it back.

Word tiles, a friendly robot and singing children — 4 · Words, songs and games 🎵Hundreds of words to build, songs to sing and games to play.

A happy microphone with colourful sound waves and letters — 5 · Sounds come alive ✨Every tap speaks, sings and sparkles.

A child records their voice and earns a gold star — 6 · Record your voice 🎤Hear yourself read and earn shiny stars.

A child reads cosily while a parent checks progress stars — 7 · Progress parents can see ⭐Stars, ticks and recordings — saved automatically.

8 · Start the adventure! 🚀Pick your island — and off we go!

What's inside to learn? 🎒

Everything follows systematic synthetic phonics and supports learners across all curricula. Here is exactly what your child can explore:

60+

phonic sounds, every letter and digraph, tap to hear

200

sight words plus alien words to sound out

86

decodable stories and readers to read aloud, line by line

55

reading quests across 13 comprehension skills

33

phonics games to play

42

sound songs, 36 recorded so far, each with its own action

130

Robot Talk games for blending and segmenting

116

flashcards, printable practice sheets and voice recording

How this helps your child progress 🌱

Audio first, always

Every sound, word and story line is spoken aloud on tap — children hear the correct pronunciation before they ever guess.

Say it, record it, own it

Children record their own voice saying sounds and words, then hear themselves back — the fastest way to make sounds stick.

Progress parents can see

Stars for completed games, ticks on practice sheets, saved recordings and reading quests — work is saved automatically.