Structured Literacy with Joy Allcock

February 2026

Welcome to Structured Literacy with Joy Allcock!

Each month, we share practical teaching insights, classroom-ready resources, and new professional learning tools designed to support confident reading and writing — grounded in structured literacy and real classroom experience.

This month’s focus is on supporting writing by reducing cognitive load — ensuring students can write any word they want to say.

Inside Code-Ed

Supporting writing by reducing cognitive load

A challenge that teachers often face is inspiring reluctant writers to write. For many of these students it’s not a lack of ideas that holds them back, it’s the effort required to write and spell the words they want to use. If students can’t just spell the word, they need to segment it into sounds and write it sound by sound. This requires excellent segmenting skills and a diverse knowledge of the alphabetic code.

Code-Ed resources quickly develop segmenting skills and phoneme-grapheme knowledge using simple routines and strategies that build strong foundations for writing.

The Code-Ed sound animals create a mnemonic that links each animal to a sound of English. Students quickly learn to pronounce all the sounds of English and to use the Sounds and Words Desktop Cards (Year 1) and Sounds and Spellings Desktop Cards (Year 2) to find graphemes that represent each sound.

This means that as soon as they can segment words into sounds, students can find graphemes to write each sound — even before the sounds and graphemes have been taught. They can write any word they want to use with confidence.

These tools make sounds visible and accessible for writing, reducing cognitive load and supporting independence.

Sound of the Month: February

Sound Hunt /f/

Each month, we also share one Sound of the Month resource so you can explore a Code-Ed sound component in your own classroom.

This month’s focus is Sound Hunt /f/.

Sound Hunts are explicit, structured literacy resources designed to help students:

Hear and pronounce sounds
Locate sounds in words
Connect sounds to print

They support both beginning learners and older students with ideas and strategies for writing.

What you unlock when you sign in

The digital Sound Hunt /f/
Teacher notes
Printable student activities (BLMs)

Everything you need to try the resource and see how students respond.

What’s New at Code-Ed

Last week we released two new professional resources to support schools to implement structured literacy with confidence and clarity.

Now available via your Code-Ed Literacy Consultant

➤ Code-Ed Alignment with New Zealand English Curriculum

This maps Code-Ed assessments and instruction to foundational skills and word-level knowledge specified in the English Curriculum.

➤ Bridging literacy gaps at school entry

A practical document outlining how
Key Foundations can be used to accelerate progress for students who arrive at school with limited foundational literacy skills and knowledge (oral language, phonological and phonemic awareness, alphabet knowledge).

➤ Please contact your Code-Ed Literacy Consultant for immediate access.

Upcoming Professional Learning Events

Workshops, webinars, and in-school PLD designed to support structured literacy implementation this Term.

➤ Otago Literacy Association, Dunedin, 26th February

➤ Joy Allcock & Jill Eggleton TTLA, Whangārei, 4th March

➤ Joy Allcock & Jill Eggleton TTLA, Kerikeri, 5th March

➤ Show & Tell, Lower Hutt, Porirua, Palmerston North, week of 9th March
(dates and venues TBC)

➤ Show & Tell, Hamilton (venue TBC), 18th March

➤ An Afternoon with Joy Allcock & Jill Eggleton, Mt Eden Normal,
19th March

Before we sign off, we’d love to hear from you.

What would you like to see more of in future editions of
Structured Literacy with Joy Allcock?

Teaching insights? Writing support? Research connections? Classroom tools?

Please reply directly to this email — we read every response!
Or contact your literacy consultant directly.

In support of every learner,

Joy & The Code Ed Team

About Joy Allcock and Code-Ed

Joy Allcock, M.Ed. (Hons), is a leading New Zealand literacy educator, author, and researcher whose work has shaped how literacy is taught in classrooms across
New Zealand, the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia.

Code-Ed is built on Joy’s evidence-proven speech-to-sound-to-print approach and classroom-tested resources, designed to strengthen teacher knowledge and ensure every learner can access reading and writing.

Our mission is simple:
evidence-proven structured literacy that builds engagement and
accelerates outcomes for all learners.

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