We have now published a great series of English worksheets to help with learning some of the basic graphemes (written representations of phonemes or sounds), covering up to Stage 5 of the ‘Letters and Sounds’ programme. The sounds covered include: ‘sh’, ‘ch’, ‘th’, ‘ng’, ‘ai’, ‘ee’, ‘igh’ ‘oa’ and ‘oo’ Using the worksheet is just a small part of teaching the sounds. For example, if working with the ‘sh’ grapheme sound start by putting your fingers to your lips and saying the sound, as if asking everyone to be quiet. Find words that have the ‘sh’ sound and say them. Show how the sound is made with the ‘s’ and ‘h’. (Cards and fans for these graphemes will be published soon!) Remember that this process is aimed at achieving fluent, almost automatic reading. Repeating sounds and blending words is just a stage in this process, to help children get to know them. Once they are known children should be encouraged to read the word straight off rather than to try and ‘sound out’. Some children get stuck in this sounding phase which makes reading fluently impossible.