New: the trugs Card Table
The trugs card games, on every classroom screen
Get It, Match It and Take It, the card games at the heart of trugs, now play in any web browser: on interactive whiteboards, laptops, Chromebooks and tablets. Every word can be heard in a real human voice.
- 15 stages and Tricky Words
- 2,000+ decodable words
- Human audio for every word
- Play Trug the robot, or a friend
Why phonics
Reading is taught, not guessed
England has made systematic phonics the heart of early reading for twenty years: learners are taught the sounds that letters make, then blend them to read words. Other countries are now changing course after a hard lesson.
England
82%
of Year 1 pupils met the expected standard in the 2026 phonics screening check, up from 58% when it began in 2012.
The 2006 Rose Review put systematic phonics at the centre of early reading, and the DfE reading framework applies it to pupils of all ages who are still learning to read. In PIRLS 2021 England scored 558, outperformed by only three of 42 comparable education systems.
United States
43 states
and Washington DC have passed science-of-reading laws or policies since 2013.
The APM Reports podcast Sold a Story (2022) investigated how “three-cueing” taught young readers to guess words from pictures and context. A 2023 study found pupils who had Reading Recovery scored 0.19 to 0.43 standard deviations lower by US grades 3 and 4. At least 11 states have now banned three-cueing.
Struggling readers
+5 months
average extra progress from phonics teaching, across 228 studies.
The Education Endowment Foundation finds phonics especially beneficial for lower-attaining pupils, and equally positive for secondary pupils. In England’s 2025 phonics check, pupils with English as an additional language did as well as their classmates: 80% for both.
trugs is structured phonics, played
Phonics is how readers learn to decode words. Reading also needs vocabulary, fluency and comprehension, built through talk, stories and reading together. trugs gives focused, enjoyable decoding practice, and its Story Book adds decodable stories to share.
- 15 stages in a fixed order, from CVC words such as cat and pin to four-syllable words and suffixes
- Words on every card are decodable at that stage, with Tricky Words sets for common irregular words
- Words, not pictures: there is nothing to guess from, so learners decode
- Reading aloud is part of every turn
- Created by Joanna Jeffery, a specialist dyslexia teacher
“Read the word on the card out loud: that’s the game!”
Sources
- Phonics screening check 2025/26, DfE, Oct 2026
- Phonics screening check 2012, DfE
- The reading framework, DfE, 2023
- PIRLS 2021: England, DfE, 2023
- Sold a Story, APM Reports, 2022
- Long-term impacts of Reading Recovery, May et al., 2023
- Science of reading laws and three-cueing bans, Education Week
- Phonics, EEF Teaching and Learning Toolkit
- Phonics screening check 2024/25, DfE
Three games, every stage
Get It, Match It, Take It
The same three card games as the trugs boxes, dealt on screen. Children play against Trug the robot, or with a friend on the same device.
Get It
Guess which word is on the next card, find it on the master card, then turn it over and say it aloud. It trains careful reading of words that differ by a single sound.
Match It
Play a card that matches the symbol or number on the table, reading each word as you go. A wild trugs card lets you change colour, and Trug is quick to spot a match.
Take It
Turn a card, read it aloud and take it, or take one from Trug. Collect four words from one colour to make a set. The most sets when the deck runs out wins.
Built for classrooms
Everything a reading lesson needs
Human audio
Tap any word to hear it, recorded by a real person, so learners hear the word as they read it.
Matched to your stage
Choose a level and stage. Each stage explains its sound focus, with example words and a teaching tip.
Trug the robot
A friendly opponent who takes turns, so one child can practise alone. Or choose two players on one device.
Cloud Table
Start a table and share the link, and players join from their own devices.
Printable Card Packs
Print any stage’s cards for table-top play, from the same word lists.
Story Book
Decodable stories to read on screen, matched to the stage a reader has been playing.
Nothing to install
Runs in the browser on whiteboards, Chromebooks, laptops and tablets.
No pupil accounts
Only staff sign in. Children simply play.
Every stage explains its sound focus, with example words and a tip.
Take It: four words from one colour make a set.
Card Packs: print any stage for table-top play.
School licenses
One license for your whole school
A trugs school license gives every teacher and teaching assistant the Card Table, on the web and on classroom computers.
- One license key per school, shared by staff accounts and classroom PCs
- Staff sign in with an emailed link or six-digit code, with no passwords to forget
- Staff who leave can free up their place themselves
- Pupils play without logging in
- Works alongside the printed trugs boxes and Packs
Ask about a school license
Tell us your school’s name and roughly how many staff will use trugs, and we’ll send pricing and set up access.
Learning English
For schools teaching English as a new language
trugs works the same way for a child learning to read in a second language: one sound at a time, one stage at a time. Human audio gives a spoken model of every word, as often as it’s needed, at school or at home.
- A clear progression from three-letter words to four-syllable words
- Hear any word again with a tap
- Tricky Words sets for common words with an irregular part
A study in inner-London classrooms, where most of the five-year-olds were learning English, found early phonics teaching gave them a lead in reading and spelling that was still there a year later (Stuart, 1999).
From cat and pin at Stage 1 to information and communication at Stage 14.
Coming next
The Card Table keeps growing
Schools and tutors on a license get each new feature as it arrives.
- Planned Spelling practice and spelling tests
- Planned More games built on the same 15 stages
- Planned Install as an app on iPad, Android and Chromebook
- Planned A desktop app for Windows and Mac classrooms
- Planned Sign in with Microsoft or Google
Tutors: it’s in your Tutor Pack
trugs Tutor Pack members open the Card Table straight from their Read Successfully account.