Learn to Read with Olly
From first sounds to first stories.
A complete phonics path in 97 short lessons. Olly shows how, then your child has a go: hear the sounds in words, learn what each letter says, push sounds together to read, then read little stories made only of what they have learned.
How it teaches
The science of reading, in plain words
Children learn to read best when sounds and letters are taught directly, in a planned order, and practiced until reading words becomes easy. Every lesson follows the same rhythm: Olly shows one example, then the child tries, with help ready.
- Hear the soundsRhymes, beats and the first, middle and last sounds in words, before any letters.
- Letters and their soundsEvery letter in a planned order, starting with s, a, t, p, so real words come quickly.
- Blend and buildTap each sound, push them together to read a word, and build words from letter tiles.
- Patterns and tricky wordsWord families, magic e and vowel teams; common tricky words a few at a time.
- Sentences and storiesRead sentences, then decodable stories made only of sounds already taught.
- UnderstandQuestions about who, where, what happened first and why, after every story.
Try it now
80 of the 97 lessons are free to play here, the first ones of every place. A guest's stars stay on this device; a free family account keeps them and shows a grown-up the progress.
The Reading Forest
Hoo-hoo! I'm Olly. Let's learn to read together. Tap the big button to start the first lesson!
The path
Places on the path
Tap a stone to play a lesson. Stars show what you've done.
Place 1 Sound Garden Listening and sound awareness
Hear rhymes, clap the beats in words, find the first, middle and last sounds, push sounds together and pull words apart. No letters yet: everything is listening.
Place 2 Alphabet Meadow Letters and sounds
Learn the sound of every letter in a planned order (s a t p first), match capital and small letters, and meet sh, ch, th, ng and wh.
Place 3 Blending Bridge Blending and decoding
Tap the sounds in a printed word and push them together, build words from letter tiles, read a word and match its picture, and change one sound to make a new word.
Place 4 Word Village Word families and patterns
Word families, consonant blends, magic e, vowel teams, bossy r and two-beat words.
Place 5 Tricky Word Woods Tricky words
The most common words that do not follow the rules yet, a few at a time: which part is regular, which part is tricky.
Place 6 Sentence Trail Sentences
Read a sentence and pick its picture, find the missing word, put words in order and decide whether a sentence makes sense.
Place 7 Story Library Decodable stories
Little stories made only of the sounds and tricky words already learned, with questions about what happened.
Place 8 Echo Hill Fluency practice
Listen to Olly read a phrase or sentence, read it yourself, then find the one you read. A grown-up can tick that they heard smooth reading.
Story Library
Little stories made of sounds you know. Then real books you can read now!
Good to know
Honest about what it does
The sounds
Speech sounds like /m/ and /s/ are made by PlayOwl's own sound maker, drawn in code, with no recordings and nothing downloaded. Each sound is followed by a word your device's voice says ("/m/ … moon"). Where a device has no voice, every word is also printed.
No microphone
PlayOwl never listens to your child. Reading aloud is something only you can hear, so the grown-ups' page has an "I listened to them read" note instead of a score.
No reading level
Progress is shown as lessons finished, letters and tricky words learned, and reading skills shown as strong or mastered. A skill counts as strong once it has been answered well, without help, in at least 2 activities, and as mastered after at least 3 such activities on at least 2 different days. PlayOwl never labels a child with a reading level.
Real books, when ready
Read with Olly books are checked word by word against what the path teaches, so a child's "Ready for me" shelf only shows books they can sound out.