A teaching sequence, not just a pile of games
Running phonics yourself means knowing exactly what's been taught and what comes next. Word Safari walks that sequence from the first single letter sounds through digraphs, trigraphs and vowel teams, all the way up to Tier 7 vocabulary, the one point on the ladder honest enough to name outright: it's where the sequence deliberately reaches into Grade 6-level words.
Every one of the 36 decodable stories is built only from sounds your child has already been taught. Nothing jumps ahead. That's what makes the sequencing something you can actually trust as the phonics portion of your homeschool day, rather than something you have to guess at from a pile of unrelated reading games.
Each tier introduces its own small batch of new sounds, then folds them straight into that tier's decodable stories and game rounds, so a sound isn't taught once and left behind. By the time your child reaches Tier 7, they're not simply recognising more letters; they're reading real vocabulary that reaches into Grade 6 territory, built entirely on the six tiers that came before it. You can move through the tiers as slowly or as briskly as your child needs, since the sequence itself sets the order, not a calendar.
What's inside
Single letters to digraphs and trigraphs, introduced in a proven phonics order.
The sequence your child moves through, one sound and one tier at a time.
Little books built only from sounds your child can already read.
Nine reading games and three spelling modes practising that same sequence.
Rounds that fit into a homeschool day
A round of Word Safari is short enough to slot between your other subjects without derailing the morning. It works well as a warm-up before a reading block, a settle-down activity after maths, or a stand-alone phonics session on its own. You decide where it sits in your day; the game itself doesn't demand a fixed block of time.
There's no clock built into a round, so a quick warm-up before breakfast and a longer sit-down session after lunch both work equally well. The sequence itself doesn't care how the time is split across your day, only that your child keeps moving through it a little at a time.
Also maps to Cambridge Primary stages
You don't need a formal enrollment to want an external benchmark. Word Safari's English track is aligned to Cambridge stages from Reception (Cambridge Early Years B) through to Year 6 (Cambridge Primary Stage 6), so homeschooling parents who like having that reference point can see roughly where their child sits alongside it. For the full stage-by-stage picture, see our Cambridge Primary English at home page.
Because the alignment sits at the level of named stages rather than individual daily lessons, it works whether or not you follow a formal scheme day to day. It's a reference point to check against occasionally, not a syllabus you need to match line for line.