FAQs

1. About Jolly Phonics Program

The Jolly Phonics and Grammar program is a systematic and progressive approach to teaching children essential literacy skills. It embeds phonics, spelling, punctuation and grammar from Pre-k to Grade 6 via teaching that is multi-sensory and active with fun actions, stories and songs.

Learning the letter sounds helps with blending (putting sounds together to make words, for reading) and segmenting (listening for the sounds in words, for spelling). The letter sounds can be identified in these words unlike the letter names.
 
(The letter names do still get taught relatively early on – we don’t ignore them completely – but initially the focus is on the sound, and not the name.)

The letters from the first group (s, a, t, i, p, n) make more simple three-letter words than any other six letters, allowing children far more opportunities to start developing their blending and segmenting knowledge and skills as early as possible.

Sometimes, two letters put together can create a different sound to each letter put individually. For example, the letter sounds /s/ and /h/ make a new sound when combined as the digraph /sh/.

We teach one way of spelling the letter sounds initially, before later introducing alternatives as the program progresses into the later Grammar years.

We include a selection of ‘Tricky Words’; words that cannot be decoded using regular blending and segmenting. These are taught specifically as sight words that children simply need to learn.

Precursive letters have exit tails – ‘little flicks’ – at the end that encourage joined-up handwriting. Print letters, meanwhile, do not have these. Many of the Jolly Phonics resources are available in both precursive and print letters, so it is important to check what your school policy is to ensure you purchase the correct versions.
 
Faq
 
Although this is not always the case, generally speaking those following a British English curriculum will use precursive letters, whilst those following an American English curriculum will use print letters.
 
Unfortunately, we do not have any resources that are available in fully cursive letters (with entry strokes).
Trusted by teachers and loved by children, we’re delighted to announce that Jolly Phonics has been validated by the Department for Education in the UK as a complete systematic synthetic phonics program. This means that the program meets the 16 essential core criteria required by the DfE.
In the US, the Jolly Phonics and Jolly Grammar programs have been aligned to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS)
All of our Jolly Phonics Readers are decodable, meaning they match the skills and knowledge taught within the Jolly Phonics program. This means that the text is constantly within reach of the children, who are able to apply their knowledge to practice reading skills.

Other readers may contain words or spelling patterns that have not yet been taught within Jolly Phonics, meaning not only that the children will be unable to read certain parts, but also may create a negative experience that puts them off reading altogether. If you plan on ‘mixing and matching’ books from different schemes, schools must be very careful and check that the books being given to children have letter sounds and tricky words that have already been taught.

2. RESOURCES AND ORDERS

Jolly Reading generally only ships within the US and some parts of Canada. You can purchase directly via our online shop or by contacting jollyreading42@gmail.com Purchase orders are accepted.
There is a minimum shipping charge of $5.00 for all orders under $50.00. Any orders over $50.00 carry an 8% shipping charge.

The only resources we have available digitally – outside of our software and apps – are our decodable e-readers, which are available to download via the Jolly Learning website, or via Apple Books and Google Play Books. Unfortunately, we do not have digital versions of any of our other resources.

If you have any questions about your order, or have any problems, please do not hesitate to email us on jollyreading42@gmail.com and we will look into this for you.