Note from the Author

With the publication of the Rose Review, the Renewed Literacy Strategy and the Phases of Phonic Progression in Letters and Sounds, I have been thinking about their impact on the original Jelly and Bean Reception Year books written during 1998 - 1999.

Phase 2

Books 1 - 7 in the Reception Series and books 1 - 7 in the b Series use 21 small letters of the alphabet, and the tricky words 'the  I  me'.

The small letters are 'a b c d e f g h i k l m n o p r s t u x y'

The capital letters are 'J B L A T S P'

They also use the two words 'see look' in books 6 and 7.

Conclusion

With the exception of the words 'see   look' these books are fully decodable within phase 2.

Phase 3

Books 8 - 10 in both series introduce the remaining letters of the alphabet 'j w v z' and 'qu ck'.

Together with books 11 - 16, they provide material to consolidate the blending of the letters of the alphabet in simple decodable words.

The tricky words used are 'no my to into go are you said little out we'

Some consonant clusters are used. These give children practice in blending letters with a one-to-one grapheme/phoneme correspondence throughout the whole word.

Books 17 to 22 of the Reception Series introduce the consonant digraphs 'sh th ch ng' and the tricky words 'he she they all come was have'.

The only words containing vowel digraphs used in the Reception, b, B Series Extra and Pig Family Series are:- 'play day away see bee sleep cheep trees look for down out'.

Conclusion

If teachers tackle the digraphs/graphemes 'ay ee oo or ow ou" , the books are fully decodable within this phase.

Phase 4

The words containing consonant clusters in both the Pig Family Blends Series and the Consonants, Blends and Clusters Series use only the vowels 'a e i o u'.

Conclusion

These series are both fully decodable.

Phase 5

All the books are fully decodable in this phase.