Jolly Phonics: The Seven Letter Groups in Order

Jolly Phonics teaches 42 sounds in seven groups, and the first group is deliberately not A to Z. It starts with s, a, t, i, p and n, because those six sounds can be combined into more real words than any other six letters in English. A child who knows Group 1 can already read sat, pin, tap, nip and pat on their first week. Starting at A would give them almost nothing.

The seven groups, in order

Notice that two entries in Group 5 look identical. That is not a misprint. The letters oo say one sound in book and a different one in moon, and Jolly Phonics teaches both, with different actions, because they genuinely are two separate sounds sharing one spelling.

Why the strange order?

Because the order is chosen for what it makes possible, not for tidiness.

Alphabetical order is useless for a beginner reader. A, B, C gives you almost no words. The s, a, t, i, p, n opening is shared by most modern phonics programmes for the same reason: those six sounds combine into dozens of simple three-sound words, so a child can be reading actual words within days rather than weeks.

Group 4 is the other moment worth knowing about, because it is where the long vowel sounds arrive. Up to Group 3 a child is limited to short vowels, so everything reads a bit like a cat on a mat. From ai, oa, ie and ee onwards, most simple stories become possible and reading usually starts to feel like reading.

The actions and the songs

This is the part of Jolly Phonics parents notice first, usually because their child is doing something odd with their arms at the dinner table.

Every one of the 42 sounds has a physical action and a song. The s is a wiggling snake arm, the a is an ant crawling up your arm, and so on. It looks like decoration. It is not.

The action gives a young child a second route to the sound. When they cannot recall what a letter says, the movement often retrieves it when staring harder does not, and for four and five year olds who cannot yet sit still for long, having a physical thing to do is the difference between engagement and fidgeting.

If your child does the action before saying the sound, leave them to it. That is the system working, not a delay.

Most schools fade the actions out once the sounds are secure. Children usually drop them on their own.

Sounds, not letter names

The single most useful thing a parent can do with Jolly Phonics is say the sound rather than the letter name, and say it cleanly.

The letter m says "mmm", not "em" and not "muh". That trailing "uh" sounds trivial and is not: a child blending "muh-a-tuh" gets muhatuh, which is not a word, and then concludes that blending does not work. The same child blending "mmm-a-t" gets mat immediately.

Letter names matter later, for spelling and for talking about words. They actively get in the way during blending.

Tricky words

Jolly Phonics calls them tricky words, and they are the common ones that break the rules the child has been taught so far. The, said, was, one, they, come and so on.

They are learned by sight, in a set order alongside the groups, until the relevant spelling turns up later in the programme. If your child stops dead on said, there is nothing useful to sound out. Tell them the word and carry on. Making a child try to decode a word that cannot be decoded produces frustration and teaches nothing.

Blending is the skill, not knowing the sounds

Parents often measure progress by how many of the 42 sounds a child can name. It is the wrong measure, and it is the one that causes most of the unnecessary worry.

Knowing sounds is storage. Blending is the actual skill: holding three or four sounds in order while your mouth runs them together into a word. A child can know all 42 and still not read, and a child who knows eighteen and blends fluently is in much better shape.

The tell is what happens at the end of a word. A child who says "p-i-n" and then pauses, looks at you, and waits, is not blending yet. A child who says "p-i-n, pin" has done the thing. If your child is stuck at the pause, more sound flashcards will not fix it. Oral blending will: you say the sounds with no letters in sight, at breakfast, in the car, anywhere. "Can you pass me the c-u-p." "Time to put on your c-oa-t."

Nothing to read, nothing to look at, no pressure, and it builds the exact skill the letters are waiting for.

How Jolly Phonics compares to the other schemes

Jolly Phonics is one of the older programmes and it is used both in UK primaries and very widely internationally, which is why you will meet it in nurseries and in English-medium schools abroad more often than some of the newer names.

Structurally it stands slightly apart. It does not use the phase numbers that Little Wandle, Bug Club, Twinkl and Essential Letters and Sounds all share, so if your school talks in groups rather than phases, most phase-based advice you find online will not map onto your child neatly. Roughly, Groups 1 to 3 cover the same ground as Phase 2, Groups 4 to 7 cover Phase 3, and what comes after the 42 sounds corresponds to Phase 5.

Treat that mapping as a rough guide rather than an equivalence. The orders differ in the details, which is exactly why it is worth knowing which scheme your school actually uses before buying books.

After the 42 sounds

The 42 are the beginning, not the end. Once they are secure, children move on to alternative spellings: learning that the ai sound they met in Group 4 also appears as ay in day and as a-e in make.

That stage is the biggest and usually takes the whole of Year 1. It is where children who found the 42 sounds easy often find things genuinely hard for the first time, because the code stops having one answer per sound. That is expected, not a warning sign.

There is also a new skill hiding in it. Up to now, decoding has been a one way street: see the letters, say the sounds, done. From here a child has to try a spelling, notice whether it produced a real word, and try the other one if it did not. When your child reads a word wrongly, stops, and corrects themselves without being told, that looks like a mistake and is actually the new skill arriving. It is worth praising rather than correcting.

The reading books, and why they can look thin

Books matched to Group 1 have six sounds to work with. There is no version of that which produces a rich plot, and a parent opening one for the first time is often quietly disappointed.

Two things are worth holding onto. The first is that the constraint lifts fast: by Group 4 the long vowels arrive and the books change character noticeably within a term. The second is that the thinness is the point at that stage. A child who reads six words unaided has done something a beautiful book they cannot read would never have given them.

What matters is that the two tracks run together. Your child decodes the short matched book. You read them something far beyond it at bedtime, full of words they could not begin to spell. The first builds the mechanics, the second builds the reason to bother, and a child who only gets the first is being shown that reading is work.

What ten minutes at home looks like

• Say sounds, not names, and keep them clean. "sss", not "suh".
• Let them do the actions. They are a memory aid, not a stalling tactic.
• Wait five seconds before helping. Most children get there at four.
• Give the sounds, not the word. "p-i-n" hands them the win.
• Tell them tricky words outright. No sounding out. There is nothing to find.
• Stop while they still want more.

The publisher's own parent materials are at Jolly Learning, and your school will have a list showing which group your child is working in this term.

Lindo Phonics is not connected to Jolly Learning and is not endorsed by them. We match the published progression so a story only uses sounds your child has already been taught.