Phonics Playground is an interactive phonics program designed to help emergent and transitional readers build confidence through scaffolded, engaging activities. Children explore themed learning zones on our interactive map, each focusing on specific phonics skills from basic CVC words to complex vowel patterns.

All 12 zones are open and ready to explore — from Bug Trail's first CVC words right through to Rainbow Vowel Valley, plus the three theatre and cinema zones where children read along to video. Every zone has interactive online activities, and the shop has print-ready PDF books and editable Word assessments if you'd rather work on paper.

Phonics Playground is perfect for:

• Emergent Readers (PreK–Grade 2): Children who recognize letters and are ready to start decoding words
• Transitional Readers (Grade 1–3): Students who have mastered basic patterns and are ready for complex phonics
• Struggling Readers: Older students who need to build a strong phonics foundation
• ELL Students: English language learners building phonics skills

Our interactive eBooks include:

• Audio support on every page for correct pronunciation
• Visual learning with pictures paired with words
• Multiple modes: Flipbook mode (pictures with words) and Flashcard mode (words first for decoding practice)
• Scaffolded progression from individual word patterns to mixed practice

Children can work independently or with guidance, and the audio support means they can practice on their own.

All you need is a device with internet access — computer, tablet, or smartphone. The interactive activities work in any modern web browser. For classroom use, they work great on SMART Boards!

Every new account gets 30 days free, with every zone open and 50 credits for the Phonics Book Maker — enough to build around eight of your own books. No card needed to start.

After that, a subscription keeps the zones open and includes AI credits every month for the Book Maker. You can also buy print-ready PDF books and editable Word assessments outright, which are yours to keep forever whether you subscribe or not. Current plans and prices are on the shop page.

Most children will start with Bug Trail (CVC words), our foundational zone. If your child has already mastered CVC words, you can jump ahead to a more advanced zone. Check out our Approach page for detailed guidance on the progression through all zones.

Children mark a book complete when they finish it, and their progress builds up as they read. In My Classes you can see how each child is getting on, either by child or by reading level, and print a progress report for a parent meeting or your records.

You can also open any book a child has written or drawn in and see their actual work — look for the “My Books” row in their progress, and click through to view it.

The reading zones close until you subscribe, and you'll need a subscription to make new books.

Everything you've already made stays yours. Any book you built in the Phonics Book Maker — including the writing and drawing your children did inside it — can still be opened, printed and assigned, with or without a subscription. The same goes for any PDFs you've bought. They never expire.

No. Books you make are yours to keep. Even if a subscription lapses, you can still open them, print them and assign them to your class, and your children can still read them and see the work they did inside.

A subscription is for our reading zones and for making new books — never for holding your own work hostage.

Lettie is the friendly helper tucked in the corner of the Book Maker, My Classes and My Saved Books. Click the 💬 button and ask her anything about making a book, adding your class, how children sign in, printing, or finding something you've misplaced.

She'll ask whether you're a teacher or a parent first, so her answers fit how you're actually using it.

We're here to help! Contact us with any questions about Phonics Playground, technical support, or how to get the most out of our program. We typically respond within 1–2 business days.

You can add Phonics Playground to your home screen so it opens like any other app — full screen, with our icon, no browser bar. There's nothing to download from an app store; you add it right from your web browser in a few seconds, and it's free. Great for little hands on a tablet.

On an iPhone or iPad (Safari): open phonics-playground.com in Safari, tap the Share menu (the icon shown below — it's at the bottom of the screen, or under the … button), scroll down, and tap “Add to Home Screen.”

On an Android phone or tablet (Chrome): open the site in Chrome and tap the Install banner, or use the ⋮ menu and choose “Install app.”

On a computer (Chrome or Edge): click Install on the banner, or the small install icon at the right end of the address bar. On a Mac in Safari, choose File → Add to Dock.

The Phonics Book Maker is an AI-powered tool that lets teachers create custom decodable storybooks in minutes. You choose sentence starters and phonics levels, AI fills in the words, and you download a ready-to-use flipbook or PDF — with optional illustrations and audio narration.

There are four book formats to choose from:

• Read Along: AI illustrations paired with decodable text — students follow along as a class or independently
• Read & Draw: Students read the text, then illustrate each page themselves on-screen
• Look & Write: Writing lines for students to copy or complete words, with optional illustration
• Write & Draw: A blank book students write and illustrate themselves — great for creative response or free writing

You choose sentence starters from the Starter Bank — patterns like It is a __. or I see a __. — and select how many words fill each blank (one or two). AI then draws from your chosen phonics level(s) to fill each blank with decodable words, keeping the whole book within the pattern you've targeted.

Yes! Once the book is generated you can view the full text in the Story Text panel and edit any page directly before downloading. You can also regenerate individual illustrations if you'd like a different image for a specific page.

Once the book is generated, teachers and parents can use it in several ways:

• Project it on a SMART Board for whole-class shared reading
• Download the interactive flipbook to open on any device during a lesson
• Print it as a landscape spread for small group or take-home reading
• Enable audio narration so little ones can listen and follow along while you circulate

For Read Along and Look & Write books, you have three ways to illustrate each page:

• AI Illustrations: AI generates a unique image for each page based on the text. Images are created automatically when you generate the book — you can regenerate any individual image if you'd like a different one.
• Upload Your Own Images: Add your own photos or drawings to each page. Great if you want to use real classroom photos, clip art, or images that match a specific theme you're teaching.
• Student Drawing (Read & Draw): The right side of each page is left as a blank canvas. Students draw their own illustration directly on-screen using the built-in drawing tools — colours, brush sizes, and an eraser. Perfect for projecting on a SMART Board and drawing together as a class.

Write & Draw books always use a drawing canvas on the right — students write their own text on the left and illustrate on the right, so illustration style isn't a separate choice for that format.

Yes! Two book types include interactive writing directly in the flipbook:

Look & Write includes handwriting lines on every page. Teachers can model writing during a SMART Board lesson, or students can write on their own device with a mouse, stylus, or finger. You control how much of the sentence is shown as a model:

• Full sentence: The complete text is displayed for students to copy
• Missing word(s): Most of the sentence is shown and students fill in the phonics word(s)
• Blank lines only: No text shown — students write the whole sentence from memory or dictation

Write & Draw gives students a fully blank book — they write their own title and author name on the cover, then write and illustrate each page themselves. Great for creative response or free writing after a reading lesson.

When you save either book as an HTML file, any writing is saved inside it — so a modelled lesson can be reopened exactly as you left it.

Once your book is generated, you'll see export buttons below the flipbook viewer. There are two formats:

• Save Flipbook (HTML): Downloads a single self-contained HTML file to your device. Open it in any web browser — no internet needed — to get the full interactive experience with page-turning, audio, and drawing tools. Great for projecting in class or sharing digitally. Just keep the file somewhere you can find it!
• Print / Save PDF: Opens a print-ready version of the book laid out as landscape spreads. From there you can print physical copies or use your browser's "Save as PDF" option (usually in the print dialog) to save a PDF file.

Both options work on any device. The HTML flipbook is the best experience for reading aloud together — the PDF is handy for printing take-home copies.

Yes! The downloaded HTML file is completely standalone. Just double-click it to open it in your browser, or drag it into a browser window — no internet connection required. It will look and work exactly as it did when you saved it. You can keep it in a folder on your computer, a USB drive, or upload it to Google Drive to open from anywhere.

Yes — you'll need to be signed in, because making books uses AI. A free account comes with 50 credits. One credit covers each of these:

• writing the story with AI
• each AI picture
• saving a new book to your library

So a typical four-page book uses about six credits — the story, four pictures and the save — which makes 50 credits roughly eight books.

Credits are only used when the AI makes something new. So changing the words in a book, adding narration and re-saving are free — you'll never pay twice to fix a typo. Writing your own sentences instead of using AI doesn't cost a credit either.

Asking for a new picture does use a credit, even on a book you've already made, because the AI is drawing it fresh each time. Plans include a monthly credit allowance, and unused credits roll over.