About

Reading is a vital skill – but it’s also vital that young children learn to enjoy books and stories. Yet many children never reach a point where reading is pleasurable or read anything other than highly decodable, phonically regular, reading schemes. 500 Books is unique in linking the teaching of core phonic and sight word reading skills to ‘real books.’ It provides detailed information on books that teachers can read and share with their pupils, irrespective of the phonic programme or reading scheme the school uses. This is done through 500 Books’ distinctive approach to skill matching. It links all the phonic skills taught in popular synthetic phonic programmes, as well as the 85 skills assessed through the annual phonics screening check, to real books. So teachers can be confident that they can develop children’s essential phonic and sight word decoding skills through some of the best available real books rather than have to rely exclusively on graded books from a reading scheme. They can also feel reassured that children will have more than enough opportunities to apply their emerging skills to books that will help develop a lifelong love of reading.