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Home schooling can be one of the most rewarding — and sometimes one of the most challenging — ways to educate a child. Some families choose it for flexibility and family connection; others turn to it because traditional schooling wasn’t the right fit.
Whatever your reason, one question soon arises: How can I teach reading and writing effectively at home? Finding trusted, evidence-based literacy resources makes all the difference.
Building Literacy from the Ground Up
At the core of every strong English curriculum is literacy — the ability to read, write, and communicate ideas clearly. For home schooling families, literacy begins with phonics, the understanding that letters represent sounds and those sounds form words.
A systematic phonics approach — now widely recommended by literacy experts — gives children a logical, step-by-step way to master reading. It helps parents, too, by providing structure and measurable progress. Whether you’re teaching early readers or supporting older children who need to rebuild confidence, a clear phonics sequence is the key to success.
Balancing Structure with Creativity
Phonics provides the structure — but great literacy teaching adds imagination. The best home schooling literacy resources blend phonics practice with rich stories, thoughtful discussion, and creative expression.
Children shouldn’t only learn how to decode words; they should also explore ideas, emotions, and character motivations. Talking about story themes and writing about what they’ve read deepens comprehension and brings language to life.
A phonics-based English curriculum that includes both skills and creativity helps home-schooled learners develop genuine confidence and curiosity.
The Fitzroy Program: Trusted for Over 40 Years
For more than four decades, families and schools across Australia and around the world have relied on the Fitzroy Program to build strong literacy foundations. Since its beginnings in Melbourne, the Fitzroy Readers have been a favourite choice for teaching reading at home.
Each Fitzroy Reader introduces one new sound or digraph at a time, making learning clear and incremental. Every story is fully decodable — yet interesting enough to start a conversation. With real characters, relatable situations, and gentle humour, these are decodable readers Australia has trusted for generations.
The Fitzroy Word Skills workbooks extend each story’s learning with grammar, spelling, and comprehension tasks, plus creative writing activities that inspire children to craft their own stories. Together, the Readers and Workbooks form a complete English curriculum suitable for self-paced learning — perfect for home schooling families who want both structure and flexibility.
Why Home Schoolers Choose the Fitzroy Program
Families often tell us they appreciate how the Fitzroy Program combines a systematic phonics structure with freedom for discussion and creativity. Lessons are clear and cumulative, yet open-ended enough to adapt to each child’s interests and pace.
Children learn not only to read accurately but to think independently and express themselves confidently. It’s a balance of discipline and imagination — and it’s what keeps families returning to the Fitzroy Readers year after year.
A Proven, Creative Path to Literacy
Teaching reading and writing at home doesn’t have to be daunting. With the right phonics-based English curriculum, you can give your child the best possible start in literacy — one that’s clear, creative, and backed by more than 40 years of success.
Explore the full range at www.fitzroyreaders.com or contact admin@fitzroyreaders.com for guidance on where to begin.
Because when literacy is taught with both structure and imagination, home schooling becomes a journey of shared discovery.
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I used these when I was home-schooling my daughter for prep. Such an excellent product! Very clear and well-graded.
Mary, parent
I was very nervous as a home-school mum trying to teach my child to read. At age 8, he still wasn't reading anything. We started the Fitzroy Program and he has gone forward in leaps and bounds! Together with the accompanying Word Skills worksheets, he is now a confident reader and writer. I highly recommend this program – I can't praise it enough! I'd shout from the rooftops to anyone who wants to teach their child to read: 'FITZROY, FITZROY, FITZROY!'
Freshie, parent
Best Australian Phonics Program! As a home-schooling parent, I cannot recommend the Fitzroy Method highly enough. My three children, aged 8, 7 and 5, love the books and their progress has been nothing short of amazing.
Claudia, parent
It took me some time to locate a reader series that was a good blend of phonic teaching principles as well as memorising new words in a progressive way. Eventually I found just what I had in mind, a complete set of the Fitzroy Readers. Andrew started this year unable to read... Now he is reading Mark and Mars with fluency. We look forward to continuing the program next year.
Janet, parent
Grammar and punctuation provides rhythm and structure that make words sing. When students understand how sentences work and how punctuation shapes meaning, they gain the power to express themselves clearly, confidently and creatively.
Every child deserves to feel the joy of reading!
Find out why phonics is the best method to teach English — and how it builds confidence, independence, and a lifelong love of learning.
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