Follifoot Farm Decodable Books – Blending Series Book 4 Review

Decodable phonic books are the main educational resource used in schools across the UK to teach children to read. High-quality phonics should be written according to UK Department of Education guidelines and should be published ideally with worksheets, CDs and other media. Marlene Greenwood is the respected author and illustrator of the Jelly and Bean series of phonics. New collections fall under its new “Follifoot Farm” brand, where characters Jelly and Bean appear with new friends in a new environment.

There are five books in the Pig Family Blends series. Book 4 is called “Steps up the Hill”. This series is aimed at children from 5 to 6 years old according to their abilities. The story of this book immediately follows book 3 and the reader will now be familiar with the family of pigs who form the main characters of this series. The pigs, Billy and Tom climb a few steps to the top of a large hill. However, the grass is slippery and they fall. They fall down the hill and their friends Milly and Tilly, who are trying to save them, also fall. The story ends with the upset pigs at the bottom of the hill.

These phonics books are 100% decodable and use works up to phonics phase 4. The art of storytelling when forced into certain words can be difficult, but it’s an art that Greenwood has truly mastered having published over 100 pounds in his career. The emotion and intrigue of each book encourage children to want to read and far from reading being a chore, they will rather find it a pleasure.

The vocabulary used in this book includes: Phase 2: on, Tom, off, hill. Phase 3: them, that, bang. Phase 4: grip, skid, jump.

Vowel digraphs used include: ‘ee’: see, ‘ow’: low and ‘oo’: look.

Overall this is a lovely collection of phonics books and it’s easy to see why the Jelly and Bean and Follifoot Farm collections are used in schools across the UK and Japan.