SOUND CITY READING

A Sequential Phonics Program

Welcome to the Sound City Reading web site!
If you are visiting this site for the first time,
please read the important notes just below!

HOW TO NAVIGATE THE MENU

Unlike the older Sound City Reading site, the menu for this new site is not always visible. The page adjusts dynamically depending on the width of the window. The menu usually shows on wide windows, but does not show on narrow windows.
If the page is wide enough you might see the menu automatically near the top of the page. It goes across the page horizontally just under the solid green title bar.
If the menu does not show, look at the solid green bar at the very top of the page with the words SOUND CITY READING printed in white. (If the window is even narrower the bar will be black.)
If you see the word MENU on the left side of the same bar, click on it to show a horizontal drop down menu.
If you see a down arrow (looks like a V) on the left side of the bar, click on it to open a vertical list of menu items. Click on the V by any of the items on the list to see the subheadings for those items. Click on the subheadings to go to the desired page.
SORRY that this is so complicated!!!

HOW TO FIND THE PDF FILES

To view or download PDF files for any of the Sound City Reading books or other materials, click on PDF FILES on the menu at the top of the page. A drop down menu will show the categories for the various files. Click on the desired category to see the page with those files. Click on any of the green bars to download the files you want. The names for the books are shown on the bars. NOTE: The Reading Street PDF files are under the Reading Street menu heading.

GENERAL INFORMATION

If you are interested in phonics materials to teach beginning reading you have come to the right place. 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. 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.

These materials are copyrighted, but I give permission to teachers, tutors, parents, and schools to download, save, and print any PDF files on this site to use with their own students or children.

Scroll down to see a brief program overview, background information, and information about Reading Street supplementary materials. The old Sound City Reading website has been closed.

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 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).
Phonetic patterns are taught one at a time. Students spell and read new words with each new phonetic pattern. As they learn new words, 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 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 popular children's books.

Click here to see a graph and a flowchart showing all of the Sound City Reading books and the order in which they are taught.

Lost Files?

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.

I have updated this website to a newer format. The appearance of the pages is different, but all of the same materials are still here. The newer version allows a wider display area, which will enable me to show two page spreads for the sound charts and pages from the books with more clarity.
If the new format causes problems on your computer, please let me know! If the charts are cut off on the top and bottom on a laptop, adjust the width of the window to make it narrower. This will force the charts to become smaller and fit on the screen.
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

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 a polaroid 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 are free. You'll need Adobe Reader to download them. It will take a few minutes to download each file. After the file downloads, it takes about another half minute to open. The materials are in the form of PDF files that can be printed as practice books, workbooks, flashcards, and games. You may print the materials from this site or save any of the files to your computer after you open them. Just click on the square disk to save the file. To make it easier to look through the pages of each file, click on the button showing a page with four arrows pointing up, down, left, and right. This will give you a full view of each page. Click the arrows at the top of the page to move from one page to another.

My materials are copyrighted, but I give permission to parents, teachers, and tutors to download and print them for their students. Permission for school wide use is permitted. Any other use by anyone except myself is prohibited.

Reading Street Materials

While I was a first grade teacher I used the Scott Foresman Reading Street program. I modified some of my 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 and spelling would benefit from these materials.