2: Ditties

Once children are secure with blending, they move on to Ditties.

A ditty is the bridge between sound-blending and reading a book. A ditty is a sheet which has speed sounds (a list of sounds to practice reading speedily), green words (words that can be read by blending the sounds together) and red words (words with tricky sounds within them). There are then groups of words for the children to practise reading.

During this stage, children learn to read Set 1 Special Friends (these are where 2 - or more - letters make one sound e.g. sh ch). They read words with Special Friends as well as 3-sound nonsense words. They spell using Fred Fingers.