GUIDANCE & OVERVIEW
Printable Adult Guides for each Phase
Share these easy-to-follow guides with teachers, TAs, or parents —perfect for anyone, even those new to phonics!
Our Adult Guides are here to support adults
—whether teachers, parents, or tutors—in understanding what is covered within each phonics phase and why.
—Scroll down to download an Adult Guide for each Phase 1–6.
Easily track every required KS1 sound
-this guide shows where each statutory sound appears in Toolbox Phonics, so you can be confident you’ve got full curriculum coverage, no guesswork needed!
Deep Dive into each Phase
Focuses on listening skills
Helping children hear and isolate sounds in the environment, in instruments, and in words orally.
Each subsection includes three flexible weekly plans, each with a fun alphabet game to begin linking sounds to letters ahead of Phase 2.
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Environmental sounds, instrumental sounds, body percussion
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Rhythm and rhyme, alliteration, voice sounds
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Oral blending and segmenting
Introduces letters and sounds
Phase 2 Introduces letters and sounds in a specific order that maximises the number of words that can be made.
Children learn the letter, the sound it makes, practise reading and spelling it in words, and then apply it to simple captions and sentences.
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s a t p i n m d g o c k ck e u r h b f l ff ll ss
Introduces digraphs and trigraphs
Introducing groups of letters that make one sound.
Again, children practise reading and spelling words using these sounds and apply them to sentences.
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j v w x y z qu zz ch sh th ng ai ee igh oa oo ar or ur ow oi ear air ure er oo(u)
Focuses on consonant blends
No new sounds are introduced here, instead the focus is on consonant blends - longer words where multiple consonants are blended (e.g. str-i-ng = string).
Phase 4 also covers strategies for reading and spelling polysyllabic words- words containing three or more syllables.
Sound families, alternative pronunciations, and alternative spellings
All sounds are taken from the KS1 statutory National Curriculum list.
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Vowel Sound Families - a, e, i, o, u
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Other Sound Families
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Alternative Pronunciations
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Alternative Spellings
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More Alternative Spellings
Prefixes, suffixes & spelling rules
Phase 6 covers all prefixes, suffixes, and spelling rules stated in the KS1 National Curriculum.
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Prefixes & suffixes without spelling rules
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Suffixes with spelling rules
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Further suffixes and spelling rules
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Reading and spelling Common Exception Words
NOTE: While the National Curriculum provides guidance for Year 1 and 2, all skills are statutory only by the end of KS1. If you’d prefer to follow the year-by-year sequence, simply teach 6A before 5E. A National Curriculum cross-reference sheet is available to help teachers track what's been covered and when.
