The Phonics Plus phases,
explained simply

Ready to Read Phonics Plus is the Ministry of Education's scope and sequence for teaching the sounds and spelling patterns of English — the backbone of how reading is now taught in New Zealand primary schools. Every KiwiABC mystery is built on it: one focus sound or pattern per case, introduced in the same order your child meets it at school.

The four phases 🌱🌿🪴🌳

Phonics Plus is organised into four phases, named in te reo Māori for the stages of a growing plant — from seed to tree. Children move to the next phase when they're ready, not by age; the year levels below are a guide only.

🌱 Phase 1 — Kākano (Seed) · about Year 0

Where it all starts: single-letter sounds, short vowels, blending CVC words like cat and sun, and the first digraphs — two letters, one sound.

Read the full Kākano guide → · Kākano mysteries →

🌿 Phase 2 — Tupu (Seedling) · about Year 1

Words get longer and trickier: double-letter endings, consonant blends, qu and wh, and the famous split digraphs (magic e) that turn tap into tape.

Read the full Tupu guide → · Tupu mysteries →

🪴 Phase 3 — Māhuri (Sapling) · about Years 1–2

The big expansion: long-vowel teams (ai, ee, oa, igh…), r-controlled vowels (ar, or, er…), diphthongs (ou, oi…), and the first suffixes.

Read the full Māhuri guide → · Māhuri mysteries →

🌳 Phase 4 — Rākau (Tree) · about Years 2–3

Word-building power: silent letters (kn, gh), less common vowel spellings, contractions, prefixes and suffixes, and breaking big words into syllables.

Read the full Rākau guide → · Rākau mysteries →

Year levels at a glance

Phase	Te reo name	Rough year level	Big ideas
1 🌱	Kākano (Seed)	New entrant / Year 0	Letter sounds, CVC blending, first digraphs
2 🌿	Tupu (Seedling)	Year 1	Double letters, blends, split digraphs, ee & oo
3 🪴	Māhuri (Sapling)	Years 1–2	Vowel teams, r-controlled vowels, first suffixes
4 🌳	Rākau (Tree)	Years 2–3	Prefixes & suffixes, silent letters, multisyllable words

The whole programme sits within roughly Years 0–3. Children who need longer get longer; children who fly through can fly. That's the point of a progression.

How KiwiABC maps to the sequence

• One focus per case. Every mystery targets a single sound or pattern from the sequence — so a case badge that says sh means fifteen-plus real reads of sh words.
• Decodable clues. Clue sentences are built almost entirely from patterns already taught by that point in the sequence, so children decode rather than guess.
• Find by sound. Teaching igh this week? Use the sound switcher on the home page to jump straight to the mysteries that practise it.