A Sequential Phonics Program

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.
You are currently in the section titled A SEQUENTIAL PHONICS PROGRAM.  Hover over this title on the menu above to see a sub-menu which will take you to various additional pages.  The same holds true for all the menu tabs shown.       
Copyright Information For Educators And Parents   
The Sound City Reading materials on this site are copyrighted but I give permission to schools, school systems, tutoring programs, and individual teachers, tutors, and parents to download, save, and print them to use with their own students or children.  This copyright information applies to in-person instruction and to online teaching including virtual classroom instruction, google slides, power point presentations, and any other online teaching methods.  All other uses are prohibited. 

​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.    
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To find PDF files for a specific level, hover over 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.  
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.
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Continue scrolling to see: 
  • General Information
  • A Brief Program Overview 
  • Background Information
  • Information About Reading Street Supplementary Materials   

Store Info

 I have taken the retail store pages off line for this website.  I'm no longer offering physical copies of the Sound City Reading materials to purchase.  To print the books, see the printing recommendations on the sub-menu under A SEQUENTIAL PHONICS PROGRAM.   ​
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.  The first site was closed because the software to maintain the site became outdated. On this newer site 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.

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. 
  • To learn to write the letters of the alphabet, students trace large letter patterns multiple times on the chalkboard and on paper. 
  • Phonemic awareness skills are taught systematically in Level One - Learning The Alphabet and Level Two - Exploring Sounds In Words.  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).  The color-coded books at Level Three - Short Vowels and Level Four - Phonics Patterns, include an oral blending activity call the "Robot Game."  This activity is used to introduce each new set of words. 
  • Alphabet letters and phonetic patterns are taught one at a time.  The sequence in which they are introduced is carefully thought out, so that students will be able to learn rapidly and successfully.  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 with confidence.
  • Students spell words by segmenting them.  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 each new letter pattern before they read words with that pattern.  As they spell new words, they listen carefully to the sounds and write them.  Analyzing words in this way prepares students to read the same words successfully.
  • There is a continuing emphasis on the meanings of new words.  Less common words are discussed so that students will learn their meanings.  Many of the books include pictures to illustrate new words.  
  • Books at the short vowel level contain both words and sentences.  Sentences are also included in all of the Basic Phonics Patterns books at Level Four.
  • 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.  This allows students to read the stories with confidence.
  • 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.
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Click here to 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. 

Background Information

My name is Kathy Davis.  I am a retired teacher.  I started out as a nursery school teacher in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, when my children were little.  Later I began working as a teaching assistant in the resource room at my children’s elementary school in 1985.  It was there that I fell in love with teaching children who were having trouble learning to read.   After moving to Johnson City, Tennessee I taught kindergarten, first grade, and second grade, during a ten year period at Ashley Academy.  Most of those years were in first grade.  I was fortunate to receive training in the Slingerland method during that time.  I also obtained materials from the Total Reading program and the Dekodiphukan program and integrated those methods into my teaching.  During this time I entered the Master Of Arts In Teaching program at East Tennessee State University and received my degree in 1992.  After leaving Johnson City, I  taught nine years in first grade at Macon-Hall Elementary School in Cordova, Tennessee.  Along the way, I tutored many children individually as well.  

I wrote the materials on this site to supplement the basal reading curriculum I used for teaching reading during those years.  I wanted all of my students to learn to read well, even those who were not sure of themselves at first.  As the years went by, I revised the original materials and added more books, workbooks, and games.  The materials and teaching methods on this web site have helped my students develop their reading skills for many years.  They have worked so well I'm sharing them in the hopes that they will work with your students.  

I've given the name Sound City Reading to the phonics materials I've developed to help children learn to read and write. I've used this name because I added roofs to the first letter charts I put on my classroom wall to make them look like a row of houses in a city.
These are pictures of the first "Sound City" sound charts.  Unfortunately, they were taken with an instant print camera in 1992, and they have faded to the point that they are mostly illegible.  
The Sound City Reading materials are designed to help children learn the phonics patterns they need to become successful, independent readers. I hope that you will find them useful.

​The downloads for the materials are free, including written materials and videos.  The written materials are in the form of PDF files that can be printed as practice books, workbooks, flashcards, and games.  You may save the downloads on your computer or use them directly from the web site.  You'll need Adobe Acrobat Reader DC to download the PDF files.  It will take a few minutes to download each file.  After the file downloads, it takes about another half minute to open.  You may print the materials from this site and save any of the files to your computer after you open them.  To make it easier to look through the pages of each PDF file after you have downloaded it, use the menu to show two pages side by side, adjusted so that you can see a full view of both pages.  To do this, first click on the More Tools icon at the top of the page and choose Fit One Full Page.  Next click View at the top of the page, and then click Page Display.  On the sub-menu, click Two Page View.  For the pages to display correctly, make sure the cover is shown as a single page.   

Information About Reading Street Supplementary Materials

While I was a first grade teacher I used the Scott Foresman Reading Street program. I modified some of my previously developed materials so that they introduced phonics patterns in the same sequence taught in this reading series. There are phonics pattern worksheets, decoding sheets, stories, word wall materials, and tests. All of these materials can be reached by clicking the Reading Street tab on the menu bar at the top of this page.

​I'm sometimes asked If I have created supplementary Reading Street materials for other grades. I have not, and I don't know of any sites with similar materials at other grade levels. However, the Sound City Reading phonics materials, which are separate from the Reading Street materials, cover a span from kindergarten through second or third grade. They would be useful with students of any age who don't have a good understanding of the phonetic nature of our language.  Please take a look at them.  Older students who need extra practice with word recognition, comprehension, and spelling would benefit from these materials. ​​

Sound City Reading

All Materials Copyright 2018 by Kathryn J. Davis
All Rights Reserved
Teachers, parents, tutors, and schools may download and print PDF files to use with the students they teach. Under no circumstances are they to make a profit from distributing the materials.
​Teaching videos are free to watch, and they may be downloaded for personal use, at home or in the classroom. 
​All other uses of these materials are prohibited.
​You can contact me at kathjdavis@gmail.com.