
A systematic synthetic phonics
program for F–2
A consistent, whole-class
program with a proven impact
Essential Letters and Sounds Australia (ELSA) is a research-based program tailored for Australian schools, designed to simplify routines and reduce cognitive load for students and educators.
Effective teaching within ELSA involves delivering high-quality, explicit instruction through structured daily lesson plans and using consistent terminology and resources. Key elements include repetition, reinforcement, and regular assessments to ensure all students keep up, rather than catch up.
ELSA Teaching Subscription
Teacher Licence | $199.00
The ELSA Teaching Subscriptions provide teachers with everything they need to implement the program in their classroom. This includes planned and prepared content for every lesson, 5 days a week for 36 weeks of Years F–2. Every teacher at your school using ELSA will each need a 12-month license to the Teaching Subscription.
The key components of the ELSA Teaching Subscription are:
On- demand Teacher Training
ELSA offers comprehensive, engaging training and support through its Teaching Subscription, providing on-demand coaching every day of the year.
This flexible, affordable service includes over 35 easy-to-digest training videos, presented by experienced educators, and categorized according to the E-model, all designed with key learning principles in mind.

Daily front-of-class presentations
and lesson plans
The ELSA Teaching subscription includes daily front-of-class presentations for Foundation and Year 1, clearly labeled by year, week, and day.
These presentations provide all necessary content, guide teachers and students step-by-step, use a consistent structure and illustrations, and include interactive elements to keep lessons engaging and fast-paced.

Assessment and Intervention support
ELSA provides comprehensive assessment materials for Foundation and Year 1 to identify and address gaps in sound knowledge and reading skills. These include Progress Monitoring Assessments, Diagnostic Assessments, and Year 1 Phonics Screening Check Practice Assessments.
Assessments focus on GPC knowledge, reading skills, and more. ELSA emphasizes proactive support, with daily intervention activities and one-on-one interventions for students needing additional help.

Printable classroom resources
There are many printable classroom resources available through the Teaching Subscription. These include: Harder to Read and Spell Word Cards, Grapheme Tiles and Sound Mats.
They are used during lessons as well as in
assessment and interventions. These can also
be used for review outside of the ELSA lessons.

Explore the Teacher Dashboard
ELSA’s structured approach means that these classroom resources are used in a consistent way in every lesson, reducing cognitive load for students and maximising success.
Grapheme Cards
$39.95 each
Use these front-of-class every day of the week as part of the ELSA’s consistent lesson structure.
FOUNDATION
YEAR 1
Spelling Poster Pack
$49.95
Contains one copy of each of the Foundation and Year 1 posters, display as a clear front of class reminder
POSTER PACK
Activity Books
Pack of 8 | $63.95
These activity books are used by students during each lesson, are an essential support for reading, writing and spelling and are available in the various state specific handwriting fonts
QLD NSW VIC

eBook Library
School Licence | $399.00
The ELSA eLibrary school subscription makes digital reading practice easy, with titles matched to each week of the ELSA progression across Foundation and Year 1.
The readers include include stimulating and engaging stories and characters that reflect the diversity of student's communities and classrooms. The eLibrary includes a broad array of fiction and non-fiction stories all aligned to Letters and Sounds.
Teachers can simply assign relevant titles to students. Oxford’s decodable range, including Oxford Reading for Comprehension Decodables, Hero Academy: Non-Fiction and Alien Adventures, can be used alongside the program.
Explore our range of decodable readers

Decodable Book Packs
The Essential Letters and Sounds Australia Foundation and Year 1 Pack provides decodable readers perfectly matched to the ELSA Scope & Sequence for every week of the program. Students will read one book in pairs during the explicit teaching weeks (one book between two students), and two or more books in pairs across each review week (one book between two students).
The packs include titles from many different series aligned to Letters and Sounds and include a range of engaging fiction and non-fiction titles.
Each Pack contains over 500 readers.
VIEW THE PACKS
REQUEST A QUOTE


ELSA Phonic Readers are a series of brand new, fully-decodable books providing a
new book for every week of Foundation and Year 1, with an additional book for every
review week.
The 91 new titles feature engaging cross-curricular topics and
exciting stories that your students will love!

Meet our authors and experts
Expert Contributor
Karina is an experienced classroom teacher, school leader, and literacy consultant. Karina is passionate about the use of evidence-based literacy instruction and positive behaviour support practices in Australian schools. She has a particular interest in implementing Multi- Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) to ensure equitable access to effective instruction and intervention, so all students can succeed. Karina is currently a PhD candidate at Monash University, researching the implementation of learning sciences within an MTSS framework to support improved reading outcomes in Australian schools.
Literacy and Instructional expert
Dr Nathaniel Swain is a Teacher, Instructional Coach, and Researcher. With expertise in language, literacy, instructional practices and cognitive science, Dr Swain is dedicated to empowering teachers to develop “life-changing” language and literacy skills in every student, through effective and engaging teaching. He works as a Senior Lecturer in Learning Sciences and Director of Undergraduate Academic Programs at La Trobe University School of Education and SOLAR LAB. Nathaniel has taught a range of learners in schools and universities, and founded a community of teachers committed to the Science of Learning: THINK FORWARD EDUCATORS, now 24,000 members and growing. Dr Swain is a sought after speaker on educational circuits, and has a new book soon to be released in 2024 entitled “Harnessing the Science of Learning: Success stories to kickstart your school improvement”.
Author
Tara Dodson has many years experience in supporting schools across London as Reading Lead and developing CPD programmes for phonics and early reading. Tara runs the live training for Essential Letters and Sounds in the UK.
Author
Katie Press is a specialist English teacher, supporting schools in developing their phonics practice and modelling high-quality phonics and early reading teaching. She is the Director of English for the Knowledge Schools Trust Primaries.
Evidence of Impact
Essential Letters and Sounds Australia has been adapted for Australian
educators and learners from a very successful structured synthetic
phonics program, Essential Letters and Sounds, developed by Oxford
University Press (OUP) in the United Kingdom (UK), which has been
validated by the UK Department for Education (DfE), and which is
currently being used by more than 1000 UK schools.
In 2023, Oxford University Press (OUP) undertook an impact study
with schools in the UK to gain an in-depth understanding of the
extent to which and how the Essential Letters and Sounds teaching
program enables teachers to deliver consistent and structured
phonics teaching.