You read it. They write it back.

Monday · Build it

Read the eight cards together. "Every one has the same a in the middle. That's our pattern." Show the: "This one doesn't play fair, so we learn it by heart: t, h, e, the."

Monday · Build it

Build it, 5 min. Put out the tiles m, a, p. "Let's build map." Your kid touches each tile and says what it says, then slides a finger under the word to read it. Change, add or take away one tile at a time, and read each new word: map, mat, sat, hat, had, sad, sag, bag, tag, nag, nap.

Four words: read just the yellow four cards, then the same chain. Stretch: build black, grass and camp too.

Tuesday · Sort it · 5 minutes

Lay down had, bag, map, sat as the tops of four piles. Hand over sad, tag, nap, hat. Your kid reads each one and puts it on the pile it rhymes with. "Read me each pile. Hear how they match at the end?" Mix them up and go again, faster.

Four words: two piles, had and bag; hand over sad and tag. Stretch: sort the six stretch cards by where two consonant sounds crowd together. At the start: bl, gr, pl, sn. At the end: nd, mp.

Wednesday · Write it · 5 minutes

"I say it, you say it, tap it, write it." Say a word. Your kid says it back, taps one finger per sound (not per letter), writes it on the whiteboard, then turns the card over to check. All eight (four words: the four; stretch: all fourteen).

Wednesday · Write it

Comeback words, one minute: the two oldest words in the word bank without a star, and no more than two (fewer than two? the, then Dad: the bank starts empty). Say each in a short sentence (the one it was missed in is best); your kid writes it from memory. Wrong? Look, say the letters, cover, write again.

Wednesday · Write it

A word missed three times gets you beside them today: say it, tap it, write it together, then alone. Then add one word to the bank: one they got wrong in their own writing this week, or a list word missed last Friday. Running this week again, or the bank page full? The new word waits. No start pack yet? Write it on the back of the Friday words page, with three circles and a star beside it.

Thursday · Use it · 5 minutes

Slap it. Lay the cards face up. Say a word; the first hand flat on that card keeps it. (The little one may slap any card at all. Let them.) Then your kid writes three of the cards from memory, and one silly phrase you say: a sad hat, or a bag nap.

Four words: play with the four cards and say a sad bag. Stretch: play with all fourteen cards, and the three from memory are stretch cards.

Friday · Test it · About 10 minutes

1 Test it, 5 min. List words. Say each one twice: 1 had, 2 sad, 3 bag, 4 tag, 5 map, 6 nap, 7 sat, 8 hat. Stretch goes on: 9 black, 10 grass, 11 plan, 12 snack, 13 hand, 14 camp. Four words: 1 to 4 only.

2 Comeback words on the two ★ lines: the same two as Wednesday, each in its sentence. For Dad: "Dad, like his name, so it gets a capital."

Friday · Test it

3 Write it, 5 min. The chapter. Read each line twice; your kid says it back, then writes it, running on like a book. Everything in it uses patterns and tricky words they've had. Asked how to spell a word? Say its sounds slowly. A tricky word from before they started? Write it on the whiteboard to copy.

Friday · Read aloud: Chapter 1, The Bag

1. Dad had a bag.
2. The bag had a map.
3. The map had an X.

Four words: line 1 only. Stretch, two more: 4. Dad had a plan. 5. Grab a snack and a hat!

After: mark it (next page), scores on the tag. Pattern at the mark? Your kid colours spot 1 on the map strip.

At the foot of the page

Three-day week: Monday and Tuesday together, Wednesday, Friday (start pack page 3).