UFLI Foundations

At our school, we use the UFLI Foundations program to support students in learning to read and spell. UFLI is an evidence-based, explicit phonics program that teaches the relationship between letters and sounds in a clear, structured way.

Lessons are fast-paced and engaging, with daily practice in phonemic awareness, phonics, reading, and spelling. Skills are introduced step-by-step and regularly reviewed to help students build confidence and mastery.

By using UFLI, we ensure all students receive consistent, systematic instruction that supports strong literacy development and helps them become successful readers and writers.

Traditionally, children were taught letter names like ay, bee, sea from the start. However, letter names don’t always represent their pronunciation – examples include double u or em – and this might confuse children when they try to pronounce words made up of these letters.

The phonic approach encourages us to directly link letters (graphemes) to sounds (phonemes), and to teach children pure sounds like ah, b, k when encountering the alphabet. So, children learn how to put sounds represented by letters or letter groups (like ch or igh) together to read words in a more straightforward way.