SOUND CITY READING
A Sequential Phonics Program
Important Note To Educators And Parents
The materials on this site are copyrighted but they are free to download, print, and use. For educational purposes, you may add the web address to this site, www.soundcityreading.net, to your own website and e-mails as desired. You may also publish links to any of the pages on this site so that specific materials can be found more easily.
To find PDF files for a specific level, click on PDF FILES on the menu at the top of this page. On the sub-menu hover over PDF FILES – PHONICS BOOKS LISTED BY LEVELS. Another sub-menu will open showing links to PDF pages for each level. Click on the page you wish to open.
Welcome to the Sound City Reading web site!
If you are interested in phonics materials to teach beginning reading or to help older students become better readers, you have come to the right place. Scroll down to see the introductory information on this page or click on any of the menu items at the top of the page to visit the other pages on this site.
Important Note About Navigating This Site On Different Web Browsers:I have discovered that the menu and sub-menus on this site are not working correctly on some computers on certain web browsers. I will be working to revise the menus so that they appear correctly on all electronic devices. For now, please read these suggestions to help you navigate this site successfully.
- If you are using Edge, the menu may not be visible at the top of the page. You have to click on a down arrow to see the menu in a different format. Unfortunately, the sub-menus may not be displaying all of the available choices. Using Chrome as a browser should solve this problem.
- If you are using Safari as a browser on a computer, the menus should display correctly. However, if you are using Safari on a phone, some of the sub-menu choices do not show up.
- If you are using Firefox on a computer, all of the items on the sub-menus show up, but they may be displayed so that part of the menu is off the edge of the screen. Switching to Safari will allow the sub-menus to be seen more easily.
- Click here for more information about how to navigate this site.
Continue scrolling to see:
- General Information
- A Brief Program Overview
- Background Information
- Information About Reading Street Supplementary Materials
Store Info
I have taken the store pages off line for now. I’m continuing to update all of the materials and also preparing updated teaching guides for the books at each level. You may still download any of the PDF files that are on this site without charge to use with your students.
 | Share Your Experience – If you have used any of the Sound City Reading materials with students, please consider filling in a survey to share your experience with others who visit this website. See Share Your Experience under the BLOG heading on the menu. |
General Information
This is my second web site. I have added this site so that you can hear audio files and watch videos of instructional techniques, in addition to the PDF files for the books and other materials.
The materials on this site are designed to be used in a sequential fashion, from the readiness level through second grade and up. Older readers may use the materials as a review or to provide thorough instruction in phonetic decoding and spelling to students who have not received it.
Copyright Information – The Sound City Reading materials are copyrighted, but I give permission to parents, teachers, and tutors to download, save, and print them for their own students or children. School wide use is permitted. All other uses are prohibited.
A Brief Program Overview
- This is a systematic, sequential phonics program. It starts by teaching the alphabet, followed by short vowel words. Students then learn words with basic phonics patterns, followed by words with advanced phonics patterns. Student are not expected to read text with phonics patterns that have not yet been taught.
- The program uses multi-sensory teaching techniques. Students see, hear, say, and write letters, letter patterns, and words.
- Phonemic awareness skills are taught. Students listen for letter sounds at the beginning and end of words. They learn to segment words (break them apart into separate sounds) and blend words (put the letter sounds together to pronounce the word).
- Alphabet letters and phonetic patterns are taught one at a time. Students say the sound for each new letter or letter pattern from sound charts and flashcards daily, so that they will be able to remember and apply the patterns.
- Students spell words by segmenting them. That is, they say the individual letter sounds, separately, as they write each letter or letter pattern in the word. Students do not spell phonetic words by saying the letter names.
- Students spell words with a new letter pattern before they read words with that pattern. As they spell new words, they listen carefully to the sounds and write them. Carefully analyzing words in this way prepares students to read the words more easily afterwards.
- After spelling a new set of words, read new words with the same phonetic pattern. There is a continuing emphasis on the meanings of new words.
- Sight words are taught as exceptions to the rules. For example, students learn the sight word “been” after they have studied words with the ee/feet pattern.
- After a series of new phonetic patterns has been taught, students read a short practice story that contains words with those patterns. With very few exceptions, the stories contain words with phonics patterns and sight words that have already been taught.
- As they continue to master new patterns, students will be able to read a few “easy reader” children’s picture books during the second half of the phonics patterns level. At the advanced phonics patterns level, students will be able to read eighty-one popular children’s picture books, with reading levels from first grade through the fourth grade. Recommended books are listed in the teaching materials when students are ready to read them. The books have been carefully screened and sequenced so that, with very few exceptions, students who have studied all of the phonics patterns taught, up to that point, will be able to decode all of the phonetic words in the book.
Go to the menu heading OVERVIEW OF MATERIALS to see information about each level in the Sound City Reading program.
Clickhereto see a GRAPH and FLOWCHART showing all of the Sound City Reading books and the order in which they are taught.
Lost Files?
The old soundcityreading.com web site is no longer online because its site building software was so old it had become unusable. You can find the updated, newest versions of most of the materials on this .net site. If you are looking for an older phonics book or any other item from the previous Sound City Reading web site and you can’t find it, e-mail me at kathjdavis@gmail.com and I’ll do my best to find it and post it in this new site. If you can tell me the title of the book you are looking for or the name of the PDF file that would be helpful.
Under Construction
This site is still under construction!! I will be adding more materials as time permits. Some information is incomplete. Please continue to look for new updates.
