Cambridge Primary English, practised at home on the same stage ladder
Word Safari is a phonics and reading game that maps onto the same named Cambridge stages your child moves through at school, so home practice and classroom practice point the same direction.
Built for ages 4 to 11. A short placement warm-up finds the right stage in about two minutes, then adjusts as your child plays. Word Safari is aligned to, not an official product of, Cambridge.
The same stage ladder your school uses
Cambridge Primary is built as a ladder of named stages, and Word Safari's seven phonics tiers are laid out to climb that same ladder, one rung at a time.
If your child is at school on a Cambridge Primary pathway, or you are homeschooling to the same framework, the hardest part of choosing extra practice is knowing whether it actually lines up. Word Safari's content is built in the same order Cambridge Primary uses, starting at the youngest stage and working steadily up towards the oldest, so a child moving through the app is moving through recognisably the same territory as their classwork.
Here is the full ladder, start to finish, and where Word Safari sits on it:
- ReceptionCambridge Early Years B
- Year 1Cambridge Primary Stage 1
- Year 2Cambridge Primary Stage 2
- Year 3Cambridge Primary Stage 3
- Year 4Cambridge Primary Stage 4
- Year 5Cambridge Primary Stage 5
- Year 6Cambridge Primary Stage 6, roughly US Grade 5
Word Safari's seventh and final phonics tier lands at Year 6 / Cambridge Primary Stage 6, and its vocabulary is deliberately pitched to reach a little further, into roughly Grade 6 territory, so a strong reader nearing the top of Primary still has real headroom rather than running out of new words.
What fills that ladder
Real counts from the app's own content, not marketing round numbers.
Spread across 7 phonics tiers, from first CVC words to Grade 6 vocabulary.
Single letters to digraphs and trigraphs, taught in a proven phonics order.
Little books that only use words a child can already sound out at their stage.
Nine reading games and three spelling modes, so practice doesn't feel repetitive.
Start in the right place, not at the beginning
A child who has already covered two years of Cambridge Primary does not want to sit through beginner content, and a child just starting Reception should not be dropped into Year 4 vocabulary. Word Safari opens with a short placement play, a couple of minutes long, that finds roughly where a child's reading already sits and starts them there instead of at tier one by default. See exactly how that works on the reading placement test page.
Where this fits alongside Cambridge materials
Cambridge Primary materials
The curriculum itself: the syllabus, the classroom teaching, and the official assessments a school or tutor delivers against named learning objectives.
Word Safari
Playful practice in between those lessons: a game a child chooses to play, built around the same stage names, that turns repetition into something they ask for rather than something they're told to do.
The two are complementary, not competing. Word Safari does not replace a Cambridge Primary course, a teacher, or an assessment; it gives a child more low-stakes reps at the reading skill that course is building, at a stage that matches where they already are.
See it before you commit to anything
No card, no sign-up wall. Play a real round right now.
Built to be safe to hand a child
The same three things are true on every page of Word Safari.
Questions parents ask
Is Word Safari an official Cambridge product?
No. Word Safari's English content is aligned to the public Cambridge Primary and Cambridge Early Years stage names, but it is an independent app. It is not endorsed, accredited or a partner product of Cambridge or of any Cambridge-affiliated provider.
What stage does my child start at?
Whatever matches how they read today. A short placement play at the start finds roughly the right stage instead of assuming your child is a complete beginner, and you can see and adjust the stage from their profile at any time.
Does Word Safari really reach Stage 6?
Yes. The seventh and final phonics tier lines up with Year 6, Cambridge Primary Stage 6, and its vocabulary is set to reach a little further, into roughly Grade 6, so a fast reader has somewhere further to go.