Product Description Songbirds is a new Phonics series from Oxford Reading Tree. It comprises real stories written by the best-selling author of The Gruffulo, Julia Donaldson. All the stories are phonic stories that support the latest curriculum developments. Oxford Reading Tree Songbirds provide:* fully decodeable texts that build on pupils' phonic knowledge as they work through the 36 books over 6 stages* opportunities for segmenting, blending and matching sounds and letter blends* lively illustrations by a variety of artists* flexible activities that can be tailored to your phonic teaching* an exciting interactive CD-Rom to accompany Stages 4-6Stage 6 titles practise the long vowel sounds made by these letters:* Tara's Party - ar a* Paula the Vet - or au aw ore* Where Were You Bert? - er ir ur* Clare and the Fair - air are ear* The Deer and the Earwig - ear eer ere* Jack and the Giants - ure our Review `An excellent full range of phonic usage for these stages of text. I feel children would benefit immensely from the scheme.'St Nicholas Primary School , Oxford`What a lovely way of showing the relation of text to words in a story!'Literacy Teacher, Oxfordshire About the Author Julia Donaldson has written over forty books, including the extremely popular picture book The Gruffalo, which won three major British book awards: The Smarties Prize, The Blue Peter Award for `The Best Book to Read Aloud and the Experian `Big Three Award.