Signs for Sounds is a phonics-through-spelling program which brings cheers--loud cheers--from my first and second graders.  It happens every time.  One class got so noisy I had to train them to pump their arms in the air instead of yelling.

What's more important, the program works.  With Signs for Sounds, ordinary kids learn to spell--and read--faster than I used to think possible.  And almost  every child experiences immediate success, right from the first lesson.

What is it? Signs for Sounds is a program which makes phonics clear and  understandable, for teachers and students alike.  Developed by me, a reading specialist, and my husband, a psychologist, the method is so direct and effective that we were amazed to find it hadn't been used before.  Teachers who tried the system, loved it. "Publish this!", they insisted.  And we did!  Now the program is used daily in thousands of classrooms across the United States.

What does it do? Signs for Sounds makes spelling dictation a child-challenging adventure.  Step-by-step, through their own active efforts, students learn how to take words apart, sound by sound, and how to put them down on paper, letter by letter.
Kids love to solve puzzles.  That's why they cheer when they spell words correctly. 

How does it work?  In level 1 (the first grade program) students learn to spell "cat" (and about 400 other words) in four simple steps:

1. Listen to the sounds, "k...a...t" 2. Circle the letter which stands for each sound,
3. Moving from left to right, copy the circled letters into the first blank. 4. (later) Fold the paper on the dotted line so visual clues are out of sight. Then write the word again from dictation.

In Level 2+ (the second/third grade program) children learn to spell 800 more words, all of them familiar to primary grade students;  nearly half of the 42 lessons in Level 2+ deal with words of two syllables or more.