Ready to Read Phonics Plus – Māhuri l Sapling Phase

The Māhuri | Sapling phonics cards follow on from the Tupu | Seedling phonics cards. You can use them to support teaching of letter- sound (grapheme-phoneme) correspondences and spelling patterns before students encounter them in the Māhuri books, or to support as they read. Students’ learning needs guide you in choosing how to use the cards.

Suffix cards

Within this set, there are four cards with the label ‘suffix card’ (-s, -es, -ed, ing). A suffix is a morpheme (unit of meaning) added to the end of a word. These are the first cards in the Phonics Plus series to feature a morpheme. You’ll find additional information on suffixes and suffixing conventions within the "Teacher knowledge" section on the back of these cards.

You can download a digital copy of the cards. Go to the "About this resource" section at the top of the page. 

See Materials that come with this resource and choose:

• Phonics-cards-Māhuri-sapling-text (.pdf)

The Māhuri | Sapling phase overview shows the suggested order of the books, the focus sounds, words to blend, and kupu Māori for each book. 

You can download a digital copy of the Māhuri | Sapling phase overview. Go to the“About this resource section” at the top of the page.

See  Materials that come with this resource and choose:

• Māhuri-Sapling-Overview (.pdf)

Māhuri | Sapling introduces:

• Suffixes: -ing -ed -es 
• Alternative spellings of long vowel sounds: ai, ay, ea, igh, ie, oa, ow, oe, ew, ue. 
• -r controlled vowel sounds: ar, or, er, ir, ur, ear, air, ere. 
• Alternative spellings for sounds (phonemes) already encountered at Kākano | Seed and Tupu | Seedling:  ea (for example bread), ph, -ge, (soft g).
• Diphthongs (where two vowels slide together within a single syllable): ow, ou, oy, oi.

Māhuri | Sapling books include increasing numbers of non-decodable highly predictable topic and interest words which are likely to be in a reader’s oral vocabulary.  This includes both high frequency English words, and kupu Māori | Māori words and phrases commonly used in New Zealand classrooms (for example kia kaha). Gagana Sāmoa is introduced in book 12, Tinā Visits.

Gagana Sāmoa and kupu Māori | Māori words are highlighted in the teaching notes in the back inside cover of the books.

Māhuri | Sapling books contain the following new high frequency words:

love, find, about, own, should, were, there, why, water, come, other, hear, down, people, our, was, ready. 

Māhuri | Sapling has seventeen decodable student books.

Ready to Read Phonics Plus books have teaching notes inside the back cover.  These provide ideas about how you can use the books to engage your students with word recognition and ways to build language knowledge. 

You can access the Māhuri | Sapling books via the carousel at the bottom of this page. The suggested teaching order of the Māhuri | Sapling books, along with their focus is:

1. Sports Day – ing

2. Dipped in Mud – -ed

3. Rain is a Pain – ai

4. Stay! – ay

5. Splashing in the Stream – ea

6. Night Lights –  igh

7. Weka’s Boat – oa

8. Follow me – ow

9. Flax on the Farm – ow

10. Nat’s First Game – ir

11. Lurking in the Dark –  ur

12. Tinā Visits – ear, air, ere

13. Photo Time – ea, ph

14. Hide and Seek – ou

15. The Fastest Toy – oy

16. A Play Date for Huhu - revision of Māhuri | Sapling.

17. The Best Place to Rest - revision of Māhuri | Sapling.