Unlocking Letters and Sounds

Take your phonics teaching to new heights with Unlocking Letters and Sounds. A DfE validated SSP programme, created by a team from St Peters School, who also run the Unlocking Excellence English Hub.

Meet Unlocking Letters and Sounds

What to expect

From its careful design to reduce teacher workload, to its complete integration with our popular Reading Stars Phonics readers, ensuring absolute fidelity between teaching programme and reading books, Unlocking Letters and Sounds is the SSP programme you've been waiting for. To find out more about what's included - and see some samples - head here.

Government validation

We’re proud to say that Unlocking Letters and Sounds has been validated by the Department of Education!

Making your budget go further

We’re committed to making Unlocking Letters and Sounds as affordable as possible. The core digital subscription has been carefully priced at a flat fee of £300 per year (with a discount for small schools), while the other elements of the programme, which your school may or may not need, are an inexpensive one-time purchase.

Book your place on our free ULS SSP briefings

If you are considering a new phonics programme, take a look at Unlocking Letters and Sounds. Created by current classroom teachers, it offers a full range of resources and training to support staff to deliver high quality phonics and early reading sessions. There's a choice of dates to attend a briefing on this SSP.

So make sure you book your briefing here.

A closer look

There are four separate parts of Unlocking Letters and Sounds - here is some more information about what they cover and samples.

Jump to...

1. Core online subscription

2. CPD training

3. Fully decodable reading books

4. Professionally printed resources

FAQs

1. Core online subscription

The Progression

The progression in Unlocking Letters and Sounds largely follows the progression contained in Letters and Sounds 2007, with some modifications, including refinements and clarifications of learning elements omitted from Letters and Sounds, and updated guidance, including requirements from the National Curriculum.

The progression in Unlocking Letters and Sounds is structured to follow Phases 1 to 5 of Letters and Sounds, but some phases include additional opportunities for structured revision (‘Mastery’) and for spelling development.

The detailed progression for Unlocking Letters and Sounds shows the GPCs and CEW that are taught on a week-by-week basis. You can see a summary progression, covering what is learned by the children on a term-by-term basis, here

Lesson Plans

At the heart of Unlocking Lessons and Sounds are digital lessons, one for every day of teaching, from the beginning of Reception (Phase 2) to the end of Autumn term in Year 2. Each digital lesson can be delivered on a screen or whiteboard to a class or group of children, and covers the letters/CEW introduced that day, as well as revision of work covered to date.

You’re also provided with an overview of your lessons, week by week. You can see an example overview (for Phase 2) here.

And a sample digital lesson can be viewed here.

There is also a detailed walkthrough for each Phase on how to deliver a digital lesson. You can see an example walkthrough (for Phase 2 lessons) here.

Supporting Resources

All the tools you need to bring your lessons to life (sound mats, flashcards and wall friezes) are available to download and print from the online platform.

A more specific breakdown of these resources can be found below, where you can also find out more about the option to buy these resources professionally printed.

Phase 1 Resources

Unlocking Letters and Sounds will include digital activities for Phase 1.

The Reading Stars programme includes a range of resources for Phase 1 books. This includes 21 Phase 1 wordless books, The Reading Stars Phase 1 Handbook, and a range of digital resources. The handlbook provides over 50 separate activities covering the seven aspects of Phase 1 teaching. Details can be found here.

These activities are not part of the SSP, but for schools taking out a subscription to either the SSP or the Online Reading Stars Library fourteen of these activities (two for each Aspect) are also included on the online platform, together with useful resources such as sound files and images.

You can view a sample Phase 1 activity here

Handwriting Resources

The teaching of handwriting is built into Unlocking Letters and Sounds and letter formation is taught as part of each phonics session. So as the children learn each new letter, they learn how to write it.

In addition, regular, 5-10 minute handwriting slots should be timetabled across the week. Children need to practise handwriting under the guidance of a teacher, so that they do not develop habits which are then difficult to undo later on.

Short patters are used to support the children with letter formation, to help them visualise the letter before they write it down. These are based on the handwriting families.

Assessment

Expert assessment sits at the heart of teaching. When used well, evidence shows that it has the power to accelerate children’s learning more than any other tool available to teachers.

Ongoing formative assessment is incorporated into every lesson in Unlocking Letters and Sounds. In addition, summative assessments take place every 2 – 3 weeks, covering recent GPCs and CEW learnt, and at the end of a phase. These are 1:1 assessments that check children’s learning of taught phonemes and grapheme-phoneme correspondences, their ability to blend these phonemes and their knowledge of taught CEWs.

The class assessment spreadsheet supports teachers to quickly identify gaps in learning for individuals, groups and whole classes. From this assessment record teachers can immediately put in place intervention to fill gaps.

Supporting the lowest 20%

Unlocking Lessons and Sounds includes dedicated support for children who fall into the lowest-performing 20%. Called “Ambitious Expectations” this is a set of six focused intervention strategies that support children with reading. An Unlocking Potential Progress Sheet can be used with each child to monitor their progress.

Training

To back up the main training, which is booked separately, a number of prerecorded videos are available on the online platform, including ‘model lessons’ and ‘how-to’ videos.

You can watch an extract from a model lesson for Phase 2.

Guided Reading Support

Alongside daily phonics lessons, children practise their reading skills through daily reading practise and reading lessons using fully decodable reading books.

Unlocking Letters and Sounds includes a week-by-week book matching chart and full planning for group reading sessions (for Phases 2 to 5), using the Ransom Reading Stars Phonics readers. Each session gives opportunities to teach and practice decoding, fluency and prosody, with every child having at least one guided reading session a week.

You can see a guided reading sample lesson here

2. CPD Training

In line with best practice, OFSTED EIF and the 2021 Reading Framework, ULS has whole school training to ensure that every teacher and TA in your school is an expert in early reading. To support this training, a number of prerecorded videos are available on the online platform, including ‘model lessons’ and ‘how-to’ videos for staff to refer to and refresh their understanding of the programme. Training is an essential part of implementing the ULS SSP in your school. Whole school training is provided either online or face to face. Schools who undertake the whole school training are then supported during the year with a number of additional Twilight Training Sessions. For schools who undertake the training pre-recorded training videos are included on the online platform.

The training is run by the Unlocking Excellence English Hub, and delivered by a team of highly expert phonics teachers.

Training is booked directly with the ULS team. A summary of the training offered can be seen here

3. Fully decodable reading books

Unlocking Letters and Sounds is supported by a programme of beautifully illustrated reading books, fully aligned to the progression. These books are fully decodable at all stages and cover Phase 1 (books with no words) to Phase 5. Every week, as children move through the SSP, there are at least two new fully-decodable reading books for the children to read.

154 books are available now, with a further 71 books for Phases 4 and 5 available mid 2022.

For full details on how the Reading Stars Phonics books match to the Unlocking Letters and Sounds progression email orders@ransom.co.uk.

You can see samples of the Reading Stars Phonics readers themselves here - or get in contact for your free physical sample pack.

The Unlocking Letters and Sounds team have put together starter book packs for guided reading and independent reading to support phonics teaching using the SSP. You can find details of these packs here.

4. Professional printed resources

The resources to support your phonics lessons can all be downloaded and printed from our online platform, but for schools who want to save time and ensure there is a strong Unlocking Letters and Sounds presence throughout their classroom, the following are available to buy professionally printed:

• Sounds Mats

Professionally printed Sound Mats are available for Phases 2 and 3, showing the letters covered together with an illustration showing the appropriate ‘action image’ for each letter. You can see these here

(Purely downloadable sound mats are also available showing all vowel sounds and all consonant sounds - Phases 2 to 5.)

• Flashcards

GPC Flashcards are available covering all GPCs learned in Phases 2, 3 and 5a). These are A6 in size, with A4 versions also available for Phases 2 and 3. In addition, a set of flashcards is available covering the common exception words learned in the programme. You can see some examples here

• Wall Friezes

Two Wall Friezes are available, covering the letters learned in Phase 2 and Phase 3. Each letter includes the appropriate action image and is A4 in size. As the children move through each phase and learn new letters, each new letter can be added to the frieze, reflecting the children’s growing knowledge. You can view some sample letters here

FAQs

Answers to our most frequently asked questions can be found here

If you can’t find the answer you’re looking for, please don’t hesitate to get in contact. Our Unlocking Letters and Sounds team are always happy to help.