Up on Deck

A young girl sets off on a boat ride, and along the way she points out the animals and sea life she spots. Catherine Baker wrote this nonfiction title for early readers. Its text is built from three short chants with a steady beat, which lets adults model smooth reading while children learn the early phonics skills of Phase 1 in Letters and Sounds.

The book belongs to the Chant and Chatter strand of Collins Big Cat Phonics for Letters and Sounds and sits at Book Band Pink. It practises the sounds /o/, /e/, /u/, /r/, /h/ and ck. On pages 14 and 15, an "I Spy" game uses pictures to help children apply what they have learned about phonics.

The reading notes inside explain how to share the book with a child and list every sound and word it covers. The series as a whole is fully aligned to Letters and Sounds Phases 1 to 6, and the back of each book holds further notes, with Handbooks offering guidance on modelling, checking understanding and building vocabulary.