Schools
New for 2025 - Sunshine Online Decodable Library
New Zealand schools are eligible for a grant from the Pye Foundation to access Sunshine Online free. Apply now for 2025.
Apply for a Free GrantStudents can use Sunshine Online in classrooms and at home
Libraries
Sunshine Online comprises two extensive libraries. The Decodable Library contains 180 decodable texts which are unlocked for students sequentially so that they follow a structured, systematic, sequential order to learning graphemes and phonemes. The easy-to-use teacher administration area lets teachers listen to student recordings, and review and track their progress. In addition there are many other resources available, including downloadable student worksheets on phonics and comprehension, word lists, teacher notes, and additional print assessments including unseen texts and comprehension questions. The Levelled Library contains over 900 texts. Teacher support materials are found in the Staffroom. These materials include teaching notes, activity sheets, overview skills charts and other helpful charts and information to support planning and use of the program.
(Please note the Sunshine Online Decodable Library is currently our Australian edition, featuring Australian illustration and voiceover).
Student Dashboard and Reporting
Schools can opt for a managed or unmanaged account. We recommend managed accounts, particularly if using the Decodable Library, which is designed to be accessed by students sequentially. A managed account provides individual logins for students. Students will have a personalised avatar and a dashboard where they can see their results. With the managed account, schools will have access to an easy-to-use administration area. Teachers can allocate work, track results, listen to students' recordings and message students. The student results dashboard is easy to use and provides teachers with a record of student achievement. The unmanaged account provides a simplified way of giving students access to all material in the Libraries, but no data is saved for students.
Sunshine Online in the classroom
Whole Class Explicit Instruction (Large Screen)
- Daily review of phoneme articulation, segmenting and blending and tricky words (Decodable Library)
- Daily review of students reading connected/decodable text
- Teacher modelling of reading connected text
- Building fluency skills
- Small, targeted focus literacy group reading
- Explicit vocabulary instruction
- Develop and enhance comprehension skills
- Receptive and expressive oral language
- Paired reading
- Reading buddies across grade levels to support student learning
- Differentiated instruction – children working at own stage and pace
- Quiet audio listening and viewing with headphones
- Individualised intervention support
- Home reading for repeated practise of prior learning
- Re-visit content multiple times for practise and consolidation
Teacher resources
In the Decodable Library, many downloadable resources are available in the Teacher Resources area. These include the complete Scope and Sequence for the digital program, a term planner and a correlation document showing how the digital program aligns with the print program. In addition, teachers have access to all story books (without having to work through them sequentially, as students do), and quick teacher notes, full teachers' notes (both notes include comprehension questions on the texts), the student activity sheets (both phonics and comprehension) and (from set 4 upwards) lists of words for students to practise reading. There are also additional printable assessment documents, including screening tests, more phonics assessments, assessment of reading accuracy (comprising unseen texts) and comprehension assessment for those unseen texts.
