Free
$0forever
No card needed
- The first lesson in full, and the start of every other lesson
- 10 questions a day in games and practice
- Training and “try one like it” never count
- The practice check
- Progress and tips for grown-ups
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Ages 5 to 7
Free to startPhonics, reading, maths and science for 5 to 7 year olds, with read-aloud lessons, games and practice for the Year 1 phonics check.
Try a lesson now
This is “Counting to 20” (Maths), the course’s free lesson, in full. Turn your sound on: Budlet reads it out.
How it works
Every topic follows the same three steps, so your child always knows what comes next.
1Watch
A short animated lesson for each topic. Budlet reads every line while the picture moves in step, with little “your turn” checks along the way.
What's covered
Pick a year to see what your child will meet. Each year builds on the one before.
When your child gets stuck
A wrong answer starts a short, kind loop that finds the slip and fixes it.
1. Not yet
A wrong answer is never shown in red. Budlet says “Not yet, let’s look together”.
2. Show me why
The right answer, a reason aimed at the slip your child made, and the picture worked out.
3. Try one like it
A similar question straight away, so the fix sticks. It doesn’t count towards the daily limit.
4. Training
After a few misses on a topic: the lesson taught a different way, 3 easy ones in a row, then 2 trickier ones.
Papers and scores
Papers are done together with a grown-up, from the grown-ups area. They are untimed, and Budlet reads the questions out, except where reading is what the paper checks.
Results give a percentage and a band (Greater depth, Expected standard, Working towards). They are approximate: a guide, not a prediction. Every question is tapped or typed, so there is no drawing or written explaining.
Safe by design
Settings, prices and progress sit behind a grown-ups lock. Your child only ever sees lessons and games.
No ads
Nothing to buy and nothing to click away to.
No chat or social
No messages, friends lists or leaderboards.
No AI chat
Nothing is made up on the spot: every lesson and question is prepared in advance and answer-checked.
For parents
Free5 min read
What Years 1 and 2 cover, which assessment is statutory (the phonics check) and which are optional (the KS1 tests, since 2023/24), what teacher assessment is, and what expected standard and greater depth mean.
Preview5 min read
Questions
No. The papers here are practice in the style of the real ones, written by Courselo. They use only tick, type and put-in-order questions, so there is no drawing or explaining, and the scores are approximate. The real phonics check is read aloud to a teacher; Courselo’s version uses listen-and-match items instead.
Plans
Your child never sees prices or upgrade buttons. A locked lesson ends with “Ask your grown-up”, and when the day’s free questions run out they see “come back tomorrow”.
Choose your child’s year, check the read-aloud voice, and hand over the device.
Counting to 20
I can count and read numbers to 20.
About 4 minutes · every line read aloud
28 topics in 7 units
28 topics in 4 units
13 topics in 5 units
2Play
Quick question games that adapt as your child answers: easier when it's new, trickier as they get it. Each topic earns up to three stars.
3Practise until secure
Tricky topics come back on later days, and a topic that needs more help gets training: a fresh way to learn it, then easy questions, then a step up.
No losing, ever
No videos
No video players, and no links out of your child’s screens.
Read aloud by Budlet
Clear British or American computer voices. No microphone or camera, and nothing of your child is recorded.
We never ask for your child’s name
A nickname, if you like, stays on your device.
The 40-word check in June: real and alien words, the two sections, how the teacher scores it, the threshold announced afterwards (31 in 2026, 32 in every earlier year it was held), who takes it again in Year 2, and what the school tells you.
Preview5 min read
Ten-minute routines that work: sound buttons, blending, try the other sound, alien-word games, tricky words, and reading together without pressure, with a printable grown-up-listens sheet.
Preview5 min read
Number bonds, counting in steps, coins, clocks and shapes with household objects; the common mix-ups to watch for and how to talk about a wrong answer.
Preview5 min read
How the lessons, read-aloud, stars and practice papers work, how much to do each week in Year 1 and in Year 2, and how to use the grown-ups area.
The Year 1 phonics screening check is statutory for all children in England. The end of KS1 tests in reading, maths and grammar, punctuation and spelling have been optional since the 2023 to 2024 school year: each school decides whether to use them, usually in May of Year 2. Science has no national test at all. Ask your school what it does.
The expected standard is set after each check, once the words have been seen, so there is no fixed pass mark to aim at in advance. It was 31 of 40 in 2026 and 32 of 40 in every earlier year it was held, from 2012 to 2025. The simplest plan is to practise all the letter-sound patterns and aim for every word. Children who do not meet the standard in Year 1 take the check again in June of Year 2.
Stars are Courselo’s own practice bands, based on the share of marks earned: Working towards (under 60 per cent), Expected standard (60 per cent or more) and Greater depth (85 per cent or more). They are a guide to what to revisit, not an official grade. Schools using the optional tests convert marks to a scaled score from 85 to 115, where 100 is the expected standard; Courselo does not show one.
Each course on an account is for one learner, so progress, stars and re-teaching stay personal. A brother or sister needs their own account. The grown-ups area is where you see progress and find the practice papers.
Lessons and questions are read aloud using your device’s own voice, so it sounds the way your tablet or phone normally does. Courselo does not listen to or record your child, so it cannot hear them read; the phonics guide has a printable sheet for a grown-up to listen instead. Reading passages are not read aloud, just like the real reading test.
No. The course never asks for a child’s name, and there are no adverts, no videos, no chat and no AI in the children’s area. Lessons are short animated scenes with pictures and the device’s voice; everything a child sees was written and checked in advance.
A wrong answer is not marked with a cross. The lesson gently re-teaches the idea in a more hands-on way (fingers, coins, a story, smaller numbers) and tries again. Each topic’s practice set keeps coming back to the tricky bits. Parents’ guides suggest a ten-minute activity you can do together with things from around the house.
$0forever
No card needed
$12a month
Billed yearly, or $19 month to month