Author of the No Nonsense Phonics Skills programme, Debbie Hepplewhite, provides a step-by-step introduction of the resources and how best to use them.

1. No Nonsense Phonics Skills
for reading, spelling, handwriting,
and language comprehension
by Debbie Hepplewhite
Starter Kit

2. Systematic Synthetic Phonics:
Nine Pupil Books and Nine Teacher Books

3. The PowerPoint Presentation
• Part One: An introduction to Debbie Hepplewhite, author of
the programme, the summaries of research underpinning the
programme, and the No Nonsense Phonics Skills resources
• Part Two: Main content of the nine Pupil Books and how the
Teacher Books provide additional support for the teacher
• Part Three: More detailed guidance for delivery, monitoring,
differentiation and best use of the programme

4. Part One: An Introduction to
Debbie Hepplewhite MBE FRSA
• Previously: primary teacher, headteacher, special needs teacher –
currently: teacher-trainer & consultant
• Author of the online Phonics International programme for all ages
and contexts (2007)
• Phonics consultant for the Oxford Reading Tree
Floppy’s Phonics Sounds and Letters programme (2010)
• Awarded an MBE for ‘Services to Education’ in the Queen’s New Years
Honours List (2012)
• Author of Phonics Training Online for foundational literacy and
Debbie’s ‘two-pronged systematic and incidental phonics teaching
and learning’ approach (2015)
• Author of Phonics and Talk Time – two sequential pre-school books
introducing alphabet letters and their corresponding sounds along
with blending for reading and oral segmenting for spelling (2017)

5. Part One: Research Summaries
1) What ARE the words?
2) What do the words MEAN?

6. No Nonsense Phonics Skills Starter Kit
• 6 copies each of the nine Pupil Books (54 books in total)
• A Teacher Book for each level of Pupil Book
(9 books in total)
• 6 hard copy Mini Alphabetic Code Charts
• USB Stick with supplementary resources
• Pupil Books, Teacher Books and Mini Alphabetic Code Charts can be bought as
separate items. Other resources may be made available separately later.

7. The Nine Pupil Books

8. Suitable for:
• Mainstream teaching
• Targeted support for speeding up and consolidating learning
• Intervention when learners have specific individual needs
• Individual provision – tutoring, working in partnership with
parents or carers, home education
• English speakers
• Teaching English as a new or additional language

9. Question: How can the books be suitable for all learners?
Answer: They all need to learn the same alphabetic code
and phonics skills for lifelong reading and spelling!
Order of introducing the alphabetic code
in the No Nonsense Phonics Skills Pupil Books
Rationalising the units of sound and their many
spelling alternatives as an ‘Alphabetic Code Chart’

10. The Nine Teacher Books

11. Features of the Programme’s Rationale
1. The Systematic Synthetic Phonics Teaching Principles
2. Distinguishing between the Alphabet and
the Alphabetic Code
3. Debbie’s ‘Two-pronged systematic and incidental phonics
teaching and learning’ approach
4. Delivered through a phonics Teaching and Learning Cycle

12. The Systematic Synthetic Phonics
Teaching Principles
http://www.phonicsinternational.com/Triangle_sub_core_skills.pdf
1. Systematically teach the KNOWLEDGE of
the letter/s-sound correspondences of
the alphabetic code and the three core
phonics SKILLS and their sub-skills.
2. Application: Use cumulative, decodable
words, sentences and texts for individual
reading/spelling/writing practice.
3. Don’t teach, or promote, multi-cueing
reading strategies that amount to
guessing words from pictures, context or
initial letter cues as these detract from,
and dilute, the phonics application and
result in weaker reading profiles.

13. The Alphabet and the Alphabetic Code
Front of chart Back of chart

14. SSP: Introducing the Alphabetic Code
• A planned, systematic synthetic phonics programme
generally teaches the English code from simple to complex:
1. Simple code (sometimes called: basic, transparent)
Introduce mainly one spelling for all the sounds (phonemes)
2. Complex code (extended, advanced, opaque)
Some sounds and graphemes revisited – spelling and
pronunciation alternatives introduced

15. The ‘Two-pronged Systematic and Incidental
Phonics Teaching and Learning’ Approach
Systematic:
Planned
incremental
phonics
programme
Incidental:
*individual
*group
*class
-as needed
+

16. General Phonics Teaching and Learning Cycle

17. The No Nonsense Teaching and Learning Cycle

18. The Phonics Exercise Book
An exercise book with lines
is required for every pupil.
These are not supplied.

19. Part Two: Main Content of the Pupil Books
‘Say the Sounds’
at the beginning
of every lesson
The Alphabetic Code
Building Up the Sounds and Graphemes

20. “Saying the Sounds”
Book 9
The Alphabetic Code
Building Up the Sounds and Graphemes
The ‘sounds’ (phoneme/s)
are shown in slash marks like this:
/s/ /a/ /t/ /i/ /p/ /n/
Vowel sounds are shown in red.
Consonant sounds are shown in blue.

21. ‘Multi-skills Activities’ pages + extra guidance
Extra guidance in the Teacher Book

22. Range of activities for each ‘Mini Story’
Suggested comprehension
questions in the Teacher Book

23. ‘Spelling Word Banks’ and
some additional activities

24. Code Assessment at the end of Books 1 to 8

25. Starter Kit Supplementary Resources

26. Part Three: Suggestions for delivery, monitoring,
differentiation and best use of the programme
• Delivery: Teaching and Learning Cycle
• Time allocated
• Marking and monitoring
• Differentiation
• Best use of the programme

27. Delivery: Teaching and Learning Cycle

28. Time Allocated
Teachers need to be time-efficient
but allow sufficient time
for learners to learn!

29. Marking and Monitoring

30. Differentiation
• Avoid planning lots of different work at different stages of the
programme if you have a group or whole class
• But don’t restrict the speed at which children complete their activities
• Don’t expect to supervise and mark all children equally thoroughly – they
won’t all need the same responses from you
• Provide additional independent extension activities for quicker learners
and older learners – for example: dictionary work, earlier expectation for
‘self-dictation’ activities, ‘What happens next?’ in the Mini Stories,
finding additional words and meanings for the Spelling Word Banks
• Some children will need more ‘little and often’ repetition – arrange this
• Have high expectations of all children’s efforts but teach ‘what this looks
like’ very thoroughly

31. Best Use of the Programme
Please note: Use the audio-video version of this PowerPoint to hear suggestions for best use of the programme.

32. To Build on No Nonsense Phonics Skills
• For further resources to extend knowledge of the alphabetic code
for vocabulary, language development and Spelling Word Bank
work, you might wish to investigate Debbie’s Phonics International
programme provided online for all ages and contexts, see:
www.phonicsinternational.com
• For more in-depth professional development for foundational
reading and spelling instruction and the ‘two-pronged systematic
and incidental phonics’ approach, investigate Debbie’s ‘Phonics
Training Online’ programme: www.phonicstrainingonline.com
• For FREE fully joined handwriting guidance and resources, see:
www.debbiehepplewhitehandwriting.com

33. Research and Reading Debate
• For research information, the following three sites are highly
recommended:
• The UK Reading Reform Foundation www.rrf.org.uk
• The International Foundation for Effective Reading Instruction
www.iferi.org
• Susan Godsland’s award-winning site www.dyslexics.org.uk