The 42 Jolly Phonics Sounds — All 7 Groups in Order

What are the 42 Jolly Phonics sounds?

The 42 Jolly Phonics sounds are the core phonemes — spoken sounds — that a child needs to read and spell most English words. They are not the same as the 26 letters of the alphabet. English has roughly 44 sounds but only 26 letters, so several sounds are made by combinations of letters, such as "sh", "ch", and "th".

Jolly Phonics groups these 42 sounds into 7 groups of 6 sounds each, and teaches them in a fixed sequence. Schools usually introduce one new sound per day, so a class works through all seven groups across the first year of formal reading instruction. The order is deliberate. It is also the single thing most parents get wrong when they teach sounds at home, because they fall back on alphabetical order.

This page is the complete sounds reference. If you want the physical actions for each sound (the snake-arm for /s/, the umbrella for /u/) and how Jolly Phonics is used in Indian CBSE and ICSE schools, see our companion guide: Jolly Phonics India: Sounds, Actions & Phases.

Why this order — and not A to Z?

The most common question parents ask is why Jolly Phonics starts with s, a, t, i, p, n instead of A, B, C. The answer is the cleverest part of the whole programme: these six sounds combine into more real, readable words than any other opening set.

With just Group 1, a child can already build and read: sat, sit, pin, nap, tap, tin, pan, sip, nip, tips. That is the magic moment — within days of starting, a child reads their first word on their own. If sounds were taught alphabetically, a child would learn a, b, c, d, e, f… and still not read a single useful word for weeks. Letters like "b", "c", and "d" don't blend into much without the right vowels and partners.

This is why it matters that home practice follows the same order as school. If you teach your child the alphabet song and then jump to phonics in A-B-C order, you work against the sequence their class is using. Follow the group order below instead.

The 7 Jolly Phonics groups in order

Here is every group, in teaching order, with the type of each sound and an example of what your child can read once the group is complete. Single-letter sounds dominate the first three groups; digraphs and vowel combinations begin in Group 4.

Group 1: s, a, t, i, p, n

Now readable: sat, sit, pin, nap, tap, tin, pan, sip.

Group 2: c/k, e, h, r, m, d

Now readable: hen, red, mat, kid, hat, dad, men, hit.

Group 3: g, o, u, l, f, b

Now readable: bug, dog, log, fun, bell, gulp, lamp, fab.

Group 4: ai, j, oa, ie, ee, or

Now readable: rain, jeep, boat, pie, feet, fork, soap, deep.

Group 5: z, w, ng, v, oo (long), oo (short)

Now readable: zip, wet, ring, van, moon, book, wing, zoo.

Group 6: y, x, ch, sh, th (voiced), th (unvoiced)

Now readable: shop, chip, think, that, yes, fox, fish, chin.

Group 7: qu, ou, oi, ue, er, ar

Now readable: queen, shout, oil, blue, her, car, bird, farm. By the end of Group 7, a child who has mastered all 42 sounds plus blending can decode the vast majority of simple English words.

42 sounds vs 26 letters — what's the difference?

Parents often ask why the programme has 42 sounds when the alphabet has only 26 letters. The reason is that English spelling is not one-letter-one-sound. Many sounds are written with two letters working together — these are called digraphs.

• Single-letter sounds — most of the alphabet, taught across Groups 1–3 and dotted through later groups (s, a, t, i, p, n, c/k, e, h, r, m, d, g, o, u, l, f, b, j, z, w, v, y, x).
• Consonant digraphs — two letters, one consonant sound: ng, ch, sh, th (voiced), th (unvoiced), qu.
• Vowel digraphs and vowel-+-r sounds — ai, oa, ie, ee, or, oo (long), oo (short), ou, oi, ue, er, ar.

Add the single-letter sounds to the 18 digraphs and combinations, and you arrive at the 42 sounds Jolly Phonics teaches. This is why a child who only knows the 26 alphabet letters still cannot read words like "ship", "rain", or "moon" — those need the digraph sounds, which the alphabet alone never teaches.

Which Jolly Phonics sounds are hardest for Indian children?

Most Jolly Phonics sounds transfer easily for Indian children. A handful do not — because they simply do not exist in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, and most other Indian languages. When a sound is absent from a child's mother tongue, no amount of listening fixes it; the tongue and lips have to be physically retrained. These are the sounds to slow down on.

ASER's annual surveys consistently find that fewer than half of Indian Class 5 students can read a Class 2-level English text fluently. A meaningful share of that gap is exactly these unpractised sounds. Many children learn every sound's name, but never drill the ones their mother tongue does not contain. The v/w swap and both "th" sounds are documented features of Indian English phonology (Wells, Accents of English, 1982; Sailaja, Indian English, 2009).

How to practise the 42 sounds at home

You do not need to be a teacher to reinforce the Jolly Phonics sounds. The two rules that matter most: follow the group order above, and make sounds aloud — never just point at letters.

For the full set of actions that go with each of the 42 sounds, plus how Indian schools sequence the groups across LKG, UKG, and Class 1, see Jolly Phonics India: Sounds, Actions & Phases. For phonics beyond Jolly Phonics, our complete phonics sounds guide covers all 44 English sounds with Indian English notes.