The Oxford Phonics Spelling Dictionary is an easy home and school reference tool. It supports the teaching of reading and spelling through synthetic phonics. Supported by the Floppy's Phonics Sounds and Letters Programme, it follows the Alphabetic Code Chart showing the sounds and alternative spellings that children will need to learn to become proficient readers and spellers. The words are ordered by initial sound and there are subsections to show how the same sounds appear in the middle or at the end of a word. The long vowel sounds and their alternative spellings appear in a separate section within the dictionary. This unique dictionary makes it easy to explain how 'sun' and 'Cinderella' both start with the 's' sound and how 'dance' has the same 's' sound at the end, while 'egg' and 'eat' start with the same letter but different sounds. With colourful illustrations by Alex Brychta and the familiar Oxford Reading Tree characters, this is a fun way to prepare for the phonics screening check.

There is additional phonics support material and audio on the Oxford Owl website, http://www.oxfordowl.co.uk. For more downloadable word games, puzzles, and activities go online to www.oxforddictionaries.com/schools.