Our Mission

Over the last twenty years, world leaders have turned their attention to the role of literacy in overcoming poverty. In the world's developing communities, low literacy is the brick wall that prevents widespread education. History has shown that it is only with education that we can move a community from the iron grasp of poverty.

Fantastic Phonics released its reading program as a free donation to NGOs in the developing world in 2002, and has been responding to requests for the free program since that time.

Suitable for developing  communities

The program is particularly suitable for the low technology environment of emerging communities, and provides a solid literacy backbone in places where a school is a simple shed, or a village home, or a refugee camp.

Fantastic Phonics has further its program to training videos, which helps village people to understand how phonics works, and learn the simple steps in teaching phonics. This reduces the cost of training teachers, and gives a community the freedom of creating its own literacy, for both children and adults.

In April 2014, the National Indigenous Training Academy (NITA) presented the Fantastic Phonics “Healthy Living” Series books to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, on their Royal visit to Yulara, Uluru and the Academy.

This gift underscores the broad contribution that Fantastic Phonics has made.

Suitable for developed communities

Throughout the developed world, Fantastic Phonics is sold to schools, universities, welfare organisations, and families. It is used widely for teaching English as Second Language students, and also children of disability, such as dyslexia and autism.

For communities who have the internet, the program is supported by multimedia versions, and video, and puzzles and games, which provide challenges and engagement. We are working on an offline version of these digital tools, to support villages which do not get adequate internet coverage.

Adult and Vocational Literacy

From 30 years of research it has become clear that adults who cannot read suffer the same problem as children who cannot read - they have an inability to decode the English text, because they were never taught. The program is now used widely, particularly in Indigenous communities, to help adults learn reading and writing.

This takes the form of Vocational Literacy, where adults learn not just to decode English, but also learn a specialist vocabulary of workplace and safety words they need for their employment.