About us

Enquiries@phonicbooks.co.uk     

Tel: 07711 963355  fax: 01666 823 411

Wendy Tweedie

Wendy is mother of four, grandmother of eight and teacher to many hundreds of nursery and primary pupils of all abilities 
over the years.  She graduated from the Open University and completed her PGCE at Surrey University (Roehampton) before
qualifying as a SPld teacher and later as a Sounds-Write trainer.  She also has secondary experience, running a Dyslexia
unit in a state comprehensive in Norfolk.  Latterly she was Head Teacher at the Bloomfield where she worked for seven 
years until retirement, assessing and coaching children between the ages of 6 and 15.  She was frustrated that many reading
schemes still rely on the "look and say" method when it was clear to her that guessing at reading is not the way forward for
many children.  This belief led to the founding of Phonic Books Ltd.

Tami Reis Frankfort

Tami studied History and Art History at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.  Later she trained as a mature student at
Goldsmith College (PGCE).  She started out teaching in an inner city primary school in London.  When her two children were
born she continued to work with children from ethnic minorities. Her interest in special needs drew her towards a Diploma
in Specific Learning Difficulties.  Since then she has taught special needs in an inner city secondary school and is now at the
Bloomfield Learning Centre in London.  She is convinced that phonics is the way forward in teaching children to read.  She
has trained in both Phono-Graphix® and Sounds~Write® phonics programmes and is a Sounds- Write trainer.  She feels
passionately about helping children become readers.  She believes that children need to read books that reinforce the
synthetic phonics they have been taught.  Dandelion Readers were created to meet that need.

Clair Baker

After completing a psychology degree and PGCE course Clair taught in a mainstream inner city school as a Reception teacher,
Special Needs Coordinator and EMTAG support teacher for 10 years.  Since having her own children, she has taught art in
a school for visually impaired pupils from three to sixteen and currently works as a dyslexia assessor and teacher at the
Bloomfield Learning Centre. Clair has always had a deep fascination with the power of visual imagery and has become
increasingly excited by children's picture books since reading with her own children.  It was this belief in the communication
potential inherent in art and the ability of pictures to captivate and motivate the reader that inspired her illustrations for
Dandelion Readers.  She believes profoundly that children who have failed to learn to read need to be taught using stimulating
and exciting material to start them on the journey as readers and was therefore keen to develop a unique illustration style
for the Dandelion Readers that the children would not previously have encountered in their reading books.

The three founders of Phonic Books Ltd have a passion for teaching children to read.  They are all experienced Special Needs teachers
who worked together at the Bloomfield Learning Centre. 

The centre, a charity located on the campus of Guys Hospital, London, assesses children and helps struggling readers through one-to-one
tuition using synthetic phonics.  The Centre also trains teachers and teaching assistants in how to teach reading using phonics.   

When in 2006 the UK government adopted Synthetic Phonics as the preferred route to reading, the three partners knew there was a lack
of structured reading books and teaching resources.  They decided to write, illustrate and publish their own and created the Dandelion
Readers series, initially distributing "Dandelions" from a small flat in Southwark.  Since then, there has been a growing demand from local
authorities, schools, teachers and parents.  More and more "Dandelions" are being used in mainstream classrooms as well as a special needs
resource for children who need extra support.

Following demand from their customers, the range has extended from the initial 10 titles to 135 today and will reach 160 before the end
of the year.  The range of books caters for pupils in Foundation Stage to reluctant readers in Years 7 and 8 in secondary school.  

Distribution is now contracted out to a professional warehouse.  The books are used in about 3000 UK schools and are exported to 16
countries.  PB remains a small business which is determined to help in promoting literacy and estimates well over one hundred thousand
children have already used the books.

Wendy, Tami and Clair still teach on a part-time basis and thank their own children, grandchildren  and many others, especially pupils at
the Bloomfield, for enthusiastically trialling the books.  They also run workshops at the Bloomfield Learning Centre on Synthetic Phonics.

Please feel free to blog any ideas or suggestions for the future.