Sound Foundations books have been developed with the collaboration of teachers since 2003. First produced by phonics pioneers for dyslexia tuition, they now provide an ideal entry point for younger readers and are great for reading and spelling catch-up and intervention with one-to-one and small group tuition by TAs. No specialist expertise is needed beyond the knowledge of basic phonics letter sounds.
Sound Foundations books have been developed with the collaboration of teachers since 2003. First produced by phonics pioneers for dyslexia tuition, they now provide an ideal entry point for younger readers and are great for reading and spelling catch-up and intervention with one-to-one and small group tuition by TAs. No specialist expertise is needed beyond the knowledge of basic phonics letter sounds.
5 DECODABLE BOOKS - SOUND FOUNDATIONS CONFIDENCE BUILDERS. Charity Sale
Together these cover the basic letter sounds plus:
‘ee’, ‘ar’, ‘sh’, ‘ck’, ‘th’, ‘er’, ‘ch’, ‘qu’, ‘ay’, ‘or’, ‘ai’
‘you’, ‘why’, ‘fly’, ‘said’,
‘cry’, ‘by’, ‘give’, ‘who’, ‘have’, ‘go’
‘fry’, ‘no’, ‘so’, ‘live’ and ‘today’
These phonics-based decodable readers are great for reading practice. The stories are especially suited to children needing catch-up. We do not provide pictures to ‘tell the story’ - the words do that - but these have fantastic illustrations by Ed McLachlan (The Oldie, Private Eye, New Yorker) who lent his skills to complement the writing of Hilary and Tom Burkard. Only five of the original ten books still exist, and they are out of print - a real ‘barn find’ after Tom Burkard died in 2019 - but I am putting them on TES because this content should be shared. Any proceeds will go to East Lancashire Children’s Hospice.
Learning to ‘sound out’ words is only the first step in becoming a fluent reader. Children need to practise until they can recognise words and spelling patterns automatically. If you rush ahead too fast, reading can become stressful and your child may become discouraged. It’s no fun reading if you have to sound out every other word, so these decodable readers are an invaluable resource for regular practice to improve reading fluency.
The books were originally written to complement Sound Foundations Dancing Bears A and Bear Necessities, but they work well with any phonics based reading programme. I am editing the books and hope to get them back in print, but for a limited time I am making them available on TES for charity.
All feedback welcome!
These easy to use tests tell you where to start with the Sound Foundations writing and spelling programme, Apples & Pears. This comprises four books, A-D. The test results tell you which book and level to begin with.
Sample lessons can also be downloaded from TES.
Sound Foundations resources are designed for use by non-specialist Teaching Assistants and parents, and have regularly been improved in response to their feedback. They are literally just ‘pick-up-and-go’.
Sound Foundations was begun in the early 2000’s by phonics pioneers who led the way in revolutionising the way writing and spelling are taught in UK Schools (See Rose Review).
Since then, the books have been used by thousands of schools, private tutors and home-schoolers in the UK and all around the world, but Sound Foundations is still a small family company; we reply to your emails and are happy to take any enquiries by phone.
Keep an eye on this TES site - we will be uploading lots more free useful content
Colin McKenzie
Sound Foundations Author
