Our customers have alerted us to the fact that Dandelion Books have been chosen as English ’Resource of the Week’ (11th May 2012) in the online TES review section. Hurray!  To read the review visit: http://www.tes.co.uk/teaching-resource/English-Resource-of-the-week-6225721/

We are delighted to annouce that Phonic Books Ltd is now a member of BESA, the British Educational Suppliers Association.  This means our books have been given a stamp of approval that they are of a high quality and are good value for money.

Our long awaited workbook for Units 11-15 is now in print!  It introduces the consonant digraphs ch, sh, th, ck, ng and wh. 

The workbook has lots of activities based on the stories and characters in the books.  These include wordbuilding, word and sentence reading, non-word reading, spelling, dicatation, language developoment and comprehension. 

 A great resource for beginner readers!

“Britain has one of the widest and most entrenched education attainment gaps between poor and wealthier children in Europe….

Children from low income backgrounds are half as likely to get five good grades at GCSE as their classmates. … They are more likely to leave school at 16, more likely to become Neets (not in education, employment or training) and less than half as likely to go on to higher education.” Guardian April 14^th 2012

Ministers will be spending £2.5 bn a year on the Pupil Premium for disadvantaged pupils.   To read about this flagship initiative to improve life chances and social mobility of less well off pupils click here:

We are delighted to announce that our new Dandelion Launchers workbook for Units 8-10 is in the last stages of production and will soon be available.  This workbook focuses on adjacent consonants. To find out why this may be a useful resource for your pupils click here

Come and see us at the Education Show at the Birmingham NEC, 15-17 March in Hall 4 stand J98. 

Wendy and Tami who write and edit the books will be there and so will Clair, the illustrator of Dandelion Books.

You will be able to see all the books that are included in the DfE match-funding phonics catalogue. You will also be able to see our new products for 2012 and get a sneak preview of what we are currently working on for 2013.

We are really interested to hear what you think of our books and any suggestions you may have.  See you there!

ESPO is offering a further 10% discount off Phonic products in the Match-funding catalogue up until March 31st.  This is on top of the 50% discount schools get through match-funding.    This means an additional saving of £600.00 (the total sum a school can spend is £6,000).  Any school can purchase phonic products through ESPO but only  Schools in England are offered match-funding and now the further 10% off.

This also applies to orders previously received by ESPO.  You can get a credit voucher for products already purchased through ESPO to use to purchase more phonics products. 

Until March 31st you can order Dandelion Books from their catalogue at 60% discount.

For details contact ESPO on  0116 265 7927 or visit http://www.espo.org/  This applies only to products not to training.

Last week I attended a talk given by Nick Gibb, Minister of State for Schools, to mark the bicentennial of Charles Dickens’ birth.  The speech was about promoting the love of reading.

The theme of the speech was ‘Greater Expectations’. 

If you would like to learn more about Synthetic Phonics and how to teach reading with Synthetic Phonics, and if you live in or around London you may be interested in 2 morning workshops at the Bloomfield Learning Centre in London Bridge.  Tami Reis-Frankfort from Dandelion Books will be giving these hands-on workshops.

The workshops are for teachers, TA’s and parents and will take place on February 27th and March 19th.  Cost £55.00 each.

To find out more about the course visit www.blearning.biz

By now primary schools in England should have received the DfE phonics match-funding paper catalogue for KS1 with all the products which have been selected for match-funding.  These include synthetic phonics programmes, resources and training.  To find out how to order click here.