DISCOVERY 1 : This course is designed to guide our youngest students towards the early acquisition of essential English language and literacy skills. The learning outcomes are intended to be both academic and social. Each lesson is designed to be highly interactive between the students and the teachers.

Lesson focus :

 • Developing Listening Skills – through story time, conversations and other classroom activities.

 • Understanding the Concept of Sounds – through songs, nursery, rhymes and phonological activities.

 • Improving Vocabulary – with theme-based classroom activities.

 • Learning to Speak Confidently – guided by target language, conversations, dramatic play and talk time.

 • Developing Social Skills – with classroom interactions.

 • Developing Fine-motor-skills – with pencil-grip activities.

DISCOVERY 2 : This course focuses on the development of oral communication skills. Students quickly develop their speaking ability by learning a wide range of vocabulary and sentence structures in a natural context. In this course, students develop the awareness that each spoken word is a combination of smaller sounds. We call this ’emerging phonemic awareness’.

Lesson focus :

 • Enhancing Listening Skills – through story time, conversations and other classroom activities.

 • Identifying first and last sound in words – through engaging phonemic activities.

 • Identifying the difference between words and syllables – through phonemic activities.

 • Expanding Vocabulary – with engaging, theme-based classroom activities.

 • Improving Confidence in Public Speaking – guided by target language, conversations, dramatic play and talk time.

 • Enhancing Social Skills – with classroom interactions.

 • Enhancing Fine-motor-skills – with tracing and drawing activities.

DISCOVERY 3 : This is a foundation course for the I CAN READ Reading course. Students are totally immersed in the English language and interact with the teacher in a series of fun activities. These activities are designed to teach important phonological skills that are essential to becoming an independent reader.

Lesson focus :

• Enhancing Listening Skills – through story time, conversations and other classroom activities.

• Identifying first, last and middle sound in words – through engaging phonemic activities.

• Identifying the difference between words and syllables – through phonological activities.

• Learning Oral Blending – 2, 3 and 4 sounds.

• Learning Oral Segmenting – 2, 3 and 4-sound words.

• Learning Phonics – by identifying the most common letter-sounds.

• Expanding Vocabulary – with engaging, theme-based classroom activities.

• Learning to Speak in Complete Sentences – guided by target language, conversations, dramatic play and public speaking.

• Developing Writing Skills – with specialized activities.

A typical I Can Read student has a strong phonemic awareness, they can identify first, middle and last sounds of words and are both able to blend sounds together and also segment words into their various sounds. For the first year students work systematically through a series of workbooks designed to teach and reinforce one new sound each week. The students are taught to identify sounds via the use of a series of I Can Read proprietary diacritical marks or clues.

I CAN READ 2
During the first year each lesson contains:

• A recap of the sounds previously learned
• The introduction of a new sound
• An introduction to new English vocabulary and word meanings
• The reading of two stories containing the new sound – both in groups and individually with the teacher
• A simple written activity – heavily supported by the classroom teacher
• A spelling test
• The assigning of reading, comprehension and spelling homework

I CAN READ 2
During the second year, students progress on to a novel and a series of sound based story books designed to help students reduce reliance on the diacritical marks, and rely more on the reading skills now embedded into their long-term memory.

During the second year, each lesson contains:

• Reading from the novel
• Reading from the sound based storybooks
• Oral comprehension
• Written comprehension
• A grammar exercise
• A spelling test
• The assigning of reading and spelling homework

At the conclusion of 2 years it is expected that the students will be reading and comprehending age appropriate books with confidence and fluency.

The syllabus, while unique to each level (PEP 1 to PEP 6), has the following consistent themes: 

• Listening and Viewing – receptive skills used by students for collecting information from non-written sources such as images, audio, graphics and speech
• Reading and Viewing – receptive skills used by students for collecting information from written sources such as books, newspaper articles and magazines
• Speaking and Representing – productive skills used by students for communicating their ideas through speech
• Writing and Representing – productive skills used by students for communicating their ideas through writing

Our syllabus actively assists students in developing the competencies required to become effective communicators and critical thinkers. It is designed to nurture confidence and creativity in both written and oral expression, to develop creative and divergent thinking skills, to foster collaborative learning and help students perform to the best of their ability in exam situations.

Each 90-minute lesson will focus on Learning Areas such as:

• Applied Grammar (from basic in PEP 1 through to advanced by PEP 6)
• Punctuation (from basic in PEP 1 through to advanced by PEP 6)
• Situational writing and continuous composition
• Vocabulary extension and development
• Comprehension - written, oral, visual and listening
• Proof reading, editing and conferencing
• Working collaboratively to write and present as a group
• Developing dynamic presentation skills