Phonics sets the foundations for reading and is an essential part of any beginners ESL curriculum. The Abridge Academy Phonics Course is intended to provide more guided phonics training in line with the latest synthetic phonics teaching approaches, with the specific needs of students for whom English is a second language in mind.
- Designed for 25-55 minute lessons;
- Interactive slides format with drag-and-drop activities, games, audio and more;
- (Coming soon) homework worksheets for each lesson;
- Suitable for young learners with an A1-A2 English level.
Many thanks to the wonderful Emily Radecki who has created some amazing Koala Go playgrounds to accompany this course!
Important: Lessons marked with an asterisk (*) are available for free tier members. For all other lessons, please ensure you have purchased a paid plan to access.
Level 1
Level 1 phonics focuses on simple letter sounds, as well as blending, segmenting, decoding and encoding simple CVC words. Children love the fun lesson themes and integrated decodable stories!
Unit 1
Unit 2
Unit 3 – due Oct ’23
- Royalty (k, j, q, w)
- Let’s drive (r, y, l)
- Musical mayhem (v, x, z)
- Review: Dinosaur phonics
Level 2 – coming late 2023
Level 2 phonics will introduce long vowel sounds, digraphs, trigraphs and initial / final blends. These lessons are not yet available in the phonics course, but relevant core curriculum lessons reviewing these phonics skills are instead linked below.
Unit 1: vowel sounds
- Magic E (V_e long vowel sounds) *FREE*
- I see the sea (ee, ea, ey) – 1:6:4
- A rainy day (ay, ai) – 1:4:2
- Fly in the sky (ie, y, igh)
- Ooh look a book (oo)
Unit 2: digraphs and trigraphs
- Fun at the beach (ch, sh) – 1:9:3 / old 1:7:5
- Under the sea (ph, wh) – old 11:4:1
- This is my family (th) – 1:7:3
- The silent knight (kn, gh, gn, ght)
- Hatch in the hedge (tch, dge)
Unit 3: blends
- Flip, flap, flop! (L blends)
- Let’s grow (R blends)
- The skipping star (S blends)
- Splish, splash, splosh! (three-letter blends)
- The pink king (nk, ng)
Alphabet
This alphabet course is an older course, designed to teach the core letter sounds / names, practice simple CVC blends, and help students recognise both lower case and upper case letters. Some teachers like to use this alongside phonics 1 for additional letter practice.
Unit 1: A-H
- A and B *FREE*
- C and D
- E and F
- G and H
- Review A-H
Unit 2: I-P
Teaching tips
- We opted to offer this phonics curriculum separately from the main core curriculum to give you more flexibility as to when and how to teach phonics to your students. Phonics shouldn’t be the very first thing new ESL learners study, but instead something gradually taught alongside the A1 and A2 levels.
- These lessons all have a similar structure and format. We would recommend therefore that you do not teach them all in one continuous block of classes, instead mix and match them up with core curriculum classes, to avoid learner fatigue.
- For more advanced students or those whose native language is phonetically similar to English, you may wish to just pick out the review lessons of this phonics curriculum to consolidate their skills.
- This course is not suitable for particularly young students (approximately under the age of 3) who do not have a basic familiarity with the concept of phonemes and graphemes (being able to represent a sound with a letter or combination of letters) in their own language. Instead, you should look for a curriculum focusing on developing fundamental phonemic awareness first.
I can’t find Q and R slides. I need them tomorrow.
I’m SO sorry for this – I somehow managed to miss the link to that lesson off the menu. I’ve added it back in now, hope it was in time for your lesson and your class goes well 🤞 ~Katie
Not specifically related to the phonics course, but it would be great if you have an Abridged Academy placement test that we could send to students before commencing lessons with them.
Thanks for the suggestion! Yes, it’s on the to-do list once the core curriculum is finished 🙂