Let's Play Learn (LPL) is a structured, multisensory phonics program that prepares students to read, write, and work with letters, shapes, colors, and numbers. The curriculum consists of 112 lessons which are to be completed one lesson per day. Like all main products within the Sonday System, the lessons focus not only on accuracy but also on automaticity.
LPL teaches skills traditionally taught in Grades PreK and K but can be adapted for students with cognitive impairments or who are significantly behind, regardless of their age or grade level.
Each lesson in LPL contains three parts:
- Whole Group Time reviews skills most students can do accurately and increases automaticity of these skills
- Teacher Workstation introduces new material via direct instruction
- Student Workstations allow opportunity for independent, paired, or small-group practice
LPL lessons include the 5 essential components of reading instruction—phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension—and are based on Orton-Gillingham methodology aligned with Science of Reading research. The system is named after its creator, Arlene Sonday, who was a Founding Fellow and the first president of the Orton-Gillingham Academy.
The essential elements of Orton-Gillingham instruction are:
- Direct and explicit instruction: No one is born knowing how to read; we all have to be taught. Learning to read is not natural (unlike learning to speak, for example); therefore, it must be taught explicitly. LPL uses a gradual release model of I do, you do, we do and never assumes students can guess or already know the answers.
- Simultaneous multisensory activities: Students see, hear, and feel/do all at the same time, which creates new neural pathways in the brain.
- Systematic and cumulative: Foundational skills build from simple to complex as students move through the curriculum’s 112 levels.
- Synthetic and Structured: Students are taught prerequisite, foundational skills to prepare them to read and spell.
- Diagnostic and prescriptive: Mistakes are fixed in the moment in direct response to student performance. Students are provided with multiple repetitions to target errors and train the brain for automaticity. Lesson plans are designed to be easily individualized for student need based on continuous assessment.
The topics covered in LPL include:
- Identifying letters of the alphabet, including proper letter formation
- Strengthening auditory processing
Discriminating between beginning, middle, and ending sounds
Strengthening working memory
- Building prosody with colors, shapes, numbers, and letter names
Developing automaticity with colors, shapes, numbers, and letters
- Counting up to 100 by 1s, 5s, and 10s
- Recognizing auditory and visual patterns
Tip
Review the Scope & Sequence documentation for more information.
LPL was created for whole-class, teacher-led instruction. Instruction is expected to begin at lesson 1, so there is no placement assessment before beginning the program. Use the Mastery Checks at every 10 levels to help you make instructional decisions based on data.
Each level in LPL follows the same lesson structure template. The routine and familiarity of the lesson plan lets students know exactly what to expect and minimizes the time you need to spend preparing for class.
Another key tenet of the Sonday philosophy is error correction. It is done in a direct, explicit, and multi-sensory way that doesn't single students out for their mistakes. In fact, students learn to identify and correct their own errors. This approach has been shown to improve student confidence.
Next step:
Read our Foundations paper, Reading Research and the Sonday System, for more background and details.