Listen and Watch INTERMEDIATE Letter A Songs!

BEGINNER

Listen to and sing along with the Letter A Songs and Stories!

INTERMEDIATE

Most of the a sound words we are learning are here in these videos!

ADVANCED - Teaching

With the INTERMEDIATE Letter A videos we are introducing most of the graphemes and phonemes we are learning in this lesson: Grey (ey), Break (ea), Eight (eigh), Cake (a_e), Ballet (et), Rain (ai), Square (are), Hair (air), Bear (ear), Faery (aer). We couldn't find a good video for Vein (ei) suitable for young learners, but the others are all covered. The goal here is to get students listening to and recognising the words, and to bring the concepts visually alive.

We also have have a couple of a-focused stories: Aladin, and Superted and the Inca Treasure. Stories naturally have problem-solving built into their structure (a story is essentially a problem and a solution, and this is good exercise for the students' minds - this also provides the hook that makes stories interesting). They are also great listening activities, far more efficient and effective for building listening and vocabulary than reading stories, which, at this early stage, may be slow for students, or require an adult to do it for them. Students (even if native speakers) are unlikely to understand every word and nuance of meaning and phrase in these stories, and that's ok and as it should be (there are even some jokes in there that only adults from an English-speaking culture might get - I didn't get every joke in Superted until I was much older!). This provides a kind of differentiation in the learning, as there is more there to mine and discover for advanced and older learners, even on repeat viewings, but bear in mind there are some learners who get frustrated if they don't understand EVERYTHING. These ned to be encouraged to focus on what they DO understand, not what they DON'T (a glass half-full approach).