How to Actually Use the Phonics Storybooks Instead of Just Buying Them
The Phonics And Friends series from Gorilla Games comes in levels A through C, each with a set of short storybooks designed for early readers learning letter-sound correspondence. Level A is the entry point, targeting kids who are just starting to map individual phonemes to graphemes. The books themselves are fine, but nobody talks about how easy it is to waste them. I bought the Level A pack three years ago for my nephew. We got through about six books before I realized I was doing it wrong. The problem wasn't the content, it was the pace. I was rushing through stories like they were chapters to finish, which completely defeats the whole decodable text model. What actually works is spending maybe ten to fifteen minutes per book, reading slowly, and stopping to have the child track each sound with their finger. That's it. The books don't need more than that.
Where to Get Gorilla Games Phonics And Friends Level A Phonics Storybook
The official Gorilla Games site sells the digital pack, and there are also third-party sellers on platforms like Teachers Pay Teachers and Amazon who offer printable PDF versions. The official ones come with audio recordings for each story, which is worth having if the child is hesitant about reading aloud. The PDFs from other sources usually strip the audio but include answer keys and tip sheets that the official pack doesn't mention. If you're on a budget, the PDFs are perfectly serviceable for the actual reading part. The Level A set contains stories that focus on single letter sounds, mostly consonant-vowel-consonant words like cat, dog, and pin. The progression within the pack is roughly alphabetical in its sound introduction, though not strictly so. You don't need to follow the order exactly. If a child already knows the sound for 's' and 't', you can skip ahead to the story that uses them together instead of forcing the earlier material. The stories are short enough that moving faster won't hurt anything.
The Method That Actually Works, Not the One the Package Suggests
Each book has a simple structure: a short illustrated story followed by comprehension questions. The standard advice is to read through once, then answer the questions, then move on. That approach gives you maybe a twenty-minute session per book, which sounds reasonable until you remember that most five-year-olds have an attention span that ends around minute eight. What I ended up doing was splitting each book into two sessions. First session: read the story with heavy sound emphasis, pointing at each word. Second session, a day later: re-read and do the questions. The spacing made a noticeable difference in retention. There's a specific edge case that catches people off guard. Some Level A stories introduce digraphs like 'sh' and 'ch' alongside the single sounds. These aren't always flagged in the book's table of contents or in the parent guide. I ran into this with the story about the fish, where 'sh' appeared three times in the first paragraph. The child had never seen it before and kept trying to sound out 's' and 'h' separately. The workaround was straightforward: stop the story, isolate the digraph on a blank piece of paper, say the sound three times, then return to the story. It added maybe two minutes but prevented the frustration spiral that usually follows when a child hits an unfamiliar sound pattern and doesn't get help immediately.
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What the Literature Doesn't Tell You About Level A
Level A assumes a baseline that not every child has. The first few stories presuppose that the child can identify at least half of the consonant sounds and recognizes the short vowel 'a' and 'e'. If the child doesn't know those, the early stories will feel like a foreign language, and pushing through them tends to create resistance rather than progress. In those cases, it's better to spend a week or two on isolated sound drilling before opening the books. There are free resources online for consonant and short vowel sound practice that will get you there faster than wrestling with unreadable text. Another counter-intuitive point: doing every single book in Level A is not necessary if the child is picking things up quickly. The pack includes roughly twelve to fourteen stories depending on the edition. If a child reads the middle batch comfortably and accurately, skipping ahead to Level B is fine. The levels overlap in content, and repeating the same phonics patterns across multiple books adds diminishing returns after a certain point. I'd say the useful range is about eight to ten books per level for most children, with the rest serving as review material if they return to it later.
Audio Recordings: Useful or Optional
The official digital versions include narration tracks. These are helpful for modeling fluency, especially on stories with repeated patterns that the child should pick up quickly. But they're not essential. If you're reading along with the child and pausing to discuss sounds, your voice will do just as well. The audio tracks become more valuable when you need a break or when the child wants to listen independently. At that point, set a timer for twelve minutes so they don't binge through the whole pack without stopping to process anything. One limitation of the digital version: the audio doesn't pause between sentences automatically. If you're using the narration to support reading, you'll need to manually stop and start, which interrupts the flow. The PDFs avoid this problem entirely since they don't include audio, but you lose the modeling benefit. There's no perfect option here, just a tradeoff between convenience and control.
A Note on Printability and Physical Use
If you print the PDFs, use cardstock or double-layer regular paper. The illustrations are full color and tend to bleed through on thin paper, which distracts the child more than it helps. I learned that after printing the first three books on standard 20-pound paper and watching my nephew focus on the ghost images on the reverse side instead of the story. Switching to 65-pound cardstock made the books feel more like actual reading material and less like a worksheet. It also makes them durable enough to survive being handled repeatedly over several weeks. Don't laminate the pages unless the child has a habit of tearing them. Lamination reduces readability slightly due to glare, and most kids who need lamination are the same kids who would tear unprotected pages anyway. A simple three-ring binder or a plastic sleeve works better for keeping the set together without creating visual interference.
When Level A Is Not Enough and What Comes Next
Some children outgrow Level A in two to three weeks. Others need six or eight. There's no way to predict which, so watch for accuracy and comfort rather than speed. If the child is reading the Level A stories with fewer than two errors per page and seems relaxed about it, Level B is the next step. If errors are climbing or the child is avoiding the books, stay at Level A longer and add sound-practice drills on the side. The timeline doesn't matter as much as the actual skill acquisition. Level B introduces blends and longer vowel patterns, which is a bigger jump than Level A to Level B might suggest. Don't be surprised if the transition feels harder. That's normal and expected, not a sign that something went wrong with the earlier work. Plan for Level B to take roughly twice as long as Level A for most children, and adjust your expectations accordingly.
