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.
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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  • 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.
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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 have been teaching in one way or another since 1982.  I started out as a nursery school teacher, and 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.  I went on to teach kindergarten, first grade, and second grade, ten years in Johnson City, Tennessee, and nine years in Cordova, Tennessee.  Most of my years were in first grade. Along the way I tutored a number of children individually as well.  I wrote the materials on this site to supplement the basal reading curriculum I used for teaching reading.  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, click on the button at the top of the page showing a box with four arrows pointing up, down, left, and right. This will give you a full view of each 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.