AnkiCan children use Anki for phonics?
Yes, as practice led by an adult. You choose sounds and words already taught, your child answers aloud or spells on paper, and you grade the attempt. Anki organises the reviews. Teaching and reading books remain part of the routine outside the app.
If you already use Anki, the idea is familiar: revisit something before it slips away. With a child, the adult takes care of the app so the child can concentrate on the sound or word.
This is our suggested routine for English Phonics, our children’s phonics deck. It is not a tested learning programme or a prescription for how much practice every child needs.
First letter sounds are a starting point.
Your child does not need to read already. In Letters and Sounds (2007), Phase 1 covers listening, rhyme and oral sound play; Phase 2 introduces printed letters and their sounds. The original guidance says children do not need to master every Phase 1 skill before beginning Phase 2. There is no separate Phase 1 deck to buy before this one.
Keep listening and sound games part of everyday play. For example, say the sounds in sat aloud, /s/ /a/ /t/, and model blending them into the word without showing letters. Help and play together; this is not an entrance test for the deck.
Teaching at home: begin with Set 01.
- Introduce a letter sound. Set 01 starts with s, a, t and p. Show a letter, play its recording and say the sound together. Introduce a little at a time, then use its card for recall.
- Model a first word. Once the relevant sounds are familiar, show how /s/ /a/ /t/ blend into sat. Other Set 01 words include at, pat and tap. Choose only words whose sounds your child knows.
- Add spelling when ready. Say a familiar word and help your child separate its sounds and build it with letters or write it. Keep spelling cards suspended until this task is appropriate.
If English is not your first language, use the recordings as a model and explain unfamiliar word meanings in your shared language. If blending is difficult, return to modelling and oral practice before adding more word cards.
Following school: choose what has been taught.
Ask which sounds and tricky words your child is practising and choose those first. A word is useful decoding practice only when the child knows the correspondences it uses and can manage its sound structure.
English Phonics follows the 2007 Letters and Sounds Phase 2–3 sequence. The set labels are our organisation, not a promise that your school uses the same order. Its 30 p4preview words include adjacent consonants: leave these until that blending has been taught. The tag is a convenience filter; some plurals and and are exempt, so still check the words.
The DfE reading framework explains matching reading practice to taught correspondences, practising exception-word parts, and applying knowledge in decodable text. That is the wider teaching context for this supplementary deck.
Download the printable setup guide (PDF). The deck appears in Anki as Sound Road.
Set up once. Keep the daily part simple.
Keep each child’s review history separate.
Use a separate collection for each child. On desktop, Anki profiles provide this separation; each syncing profile needs its own AnkiWeb account. See the Anki profile guide.
Park the cards you have not introduced.
In desktop Browse, choose Cards mode and select the deck in the sidebar. Keep the resulting deck: filter and add is:new -is:suspended, select those cards and toggle suspension. Then select only the taught cards to unsuspend. Check their state first: suspension is a toggle.
For Set 01, keep the same deck filter and use tag:set01 is:suspended to find suspended cards. Select the sound and reading cards you want. Leave spelling for when the child is ready. Introduce tricky words individually: their phase tags do not tell you when school teaches them.
Separate reading and spelling.
Enable all three sibling-burying options. That helps avoid showing a word and immediately asking the child to spell it. Same-day learning cards are an exception, so do not manually unbury siblings to get through more cards.
Choose a small starting routine.
Create a Sound Road preset and apply it to its sub-decks. Check FSRS is enabled; start at 0.90 desired retention. Try three new cards per day at the root deck and show them after reviews. Study from the root so the session includes earlier material and respects that overall new-card cap.
These are starter settings to adjust for your child, not a target to push through. See the Anki options manual for the controls.
The routine: answer, check, encourage.
“What sound?”
The child tries the sound first; a Picture hint can reveal the keyword image when help is needed. A hinted answer counts as assisted. Use the sound rather than the letter name. For s, that means a hiss rather than “ess”. Introduce the combined oo and th cards once both sounds have been taught.
“Read it.”
Let the child look at the printed word and blend the sounds. Independent sounding-out is a correct answer. It does not have to be instant.
“Listen, then write.”
Play the word, then let the child repeat it, segment it and write or build it with letters. For ship, /sh/ /i/ /p/ is three sounds represented by four letters.
Replay buttons are useful when checking after an attempt. If you give an answer cue before the child answers, count that attempt as assisted. For tricky words, explain the marked unusual or not-yet-taught spelling and work through the familiar parts.
Again and Good are for the parent.
Your child does not need to interpret Anki’s buttons. Use the answer they gave before you revealed the back.
“We needed some help.”
Use it after an error, an answer cue, or seeing the back first. Model the answer kindly and practise it together. An immediate repeat does not change the original attempt.
“You worked it out.”
Use it for an independent correct answer. Allow sounding-out and thinking time. Grade spelling separately from handwriting neatness.
For now, ignore Hard and Easy. If a spoken prompt has another valid spelling, explain which word was intended instead of treating ambiguity as a failure. Anki’s review guidance describes its answer buttons.
Stop while there is still a little energy left.
Try a short sitting of about 5–10 minutes, or less if needed. There is no reward for finishing an unhappy session. If existing reviews are enough, introduce no new cards. Repeated difficulty is a cue to revisit the teaching with your child or their teacher.
Then use the sounds in something worth reading: a school-matched decodable book, a familiar sentence, or a word your child wants to write. Enjoy stories you read aloud too. Flashcards cannot stand in for connected reading, vocabulary and conversation.
Prefer the cards already organised?
That’s what English Phonics is for.
48 sound cards, 282 reading/spelling words and 18 tricky words, with audio recorded by a native English speaker from England. $9.99 USD once, including the parent guide.
Explore English Phonics’s samplesAnki app required; any paid app is separate.
About this guide
The workflow is our proposed parent routine. Anki controls are linked to the official manual; curriculum context is linked to the original Letters and Sounds guidance and the DfE reading framework. Neither source endorses English Phonics or validates a particular session length for children.