If you have heard your speech pathologist talking about the term Sounds-Write, you may be wondering what it is and how it will help. 

Sounds Write is a phonics program developed to support children with learning the literacy skills involved in reading and writing. 

The program takes a stepped approach and focusses on ensuring that the foundations of literacy skills are taught well first before progressing into longer words or different word structures. 

The initial steps involve learning the correspondence between letter names/formation and the sounds made by the letters. Throughout the program, the focus remains on learning the SOUNDS that letters make and not learning the names of the letters.  The program progresses through spelling and reading consonant-vowel-consonant words (e.g., sit) to words containing consonant clusters (e.g., scrap) and ultimately to words containing vowel diagraphs (when two vowel letters together create one vowel sound, e.g., coin). 

Some of the activities involved in teaching the sounds write program include: 

  • Word building – this involves arranging letter tiles into words, which helps to support children who may be having difficulties with the motor skills involved in writing
  • Sound swap – this involves changing words that have been built during the word building activity into other words (e.g., sit → hit → him). Doing this helps to develop flexibility and the skills involved with manipulating sounds in words.  
  • Word spelling – this involves spelling words from the relevant word lists with the key prompt being “say the sounds and write the word”
  • Word reading – this involves reading words from the relevant word list. Again the focus remains on segmenting the words into the individual letter sounds (e.g., Sam → ssss aaa mmm)
  • Writing to dictation – writing a sentence presented verbally by the speech pathologist

Some of the pros of the Sounds Write Program include the fact that: 

  • It follows an errorless learning approach – this means that the program will be as supportive as the child needs and teach through getting answers correct rather than through making mistakes. This can be critical for children learning literacy as we know that confidence (or lack of) can make a huge difference in a child’s receptiveness to learning
  • It is highly structured, meaning that skills are not missed and that all critical literacy foundations are taught. This is essential as speech pathologists frequently assess children who have been learning later literacy skills at school but who are lacking the early skills required to form high quality literacy knowledge.
  • It has homework packages that can be provided to you so that you can support your child’s literacy skill learning between sessions. 

If you are interested in learning more about the Sounds Write Program or any other speech pathology interventions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at Hanrahan Health via our website, by sending us email at admin@hanrahanhealth.com.au or giving us a call on (02) 4862 5063.

Image source: https://www.pbs.org/parents/thrive/seven-tips-for-early-literacy-learning-from-knowing-your-abcs-to-learning-to-read