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The Maine Monitor
Feature article on Sounds of Success and early literacy outcomes
NEWS ARTICLEScience of Reading Classroom
Feature article on Sounds of Success and early literacy outcomes
UPCOMING PRESENTATIONIowa Science of Reading Summit
From Research to Routine: Effective Phonemic Awareness Instruction
A complete system, not just lessons
Sounds of Success is centered on blending and segmenting—the two phonemic awareness skills most directly connected to reading and spelling success. Instruction is brief, consistent, and integrated with print—helping students build accuracy, automaticity, and transfer. Each component works together to support responsive, research-based instruction across classroom, intervention, and individual settings.
Sounds of Success is Designed For:
Kindergarten & Grade 1 Classrooms
Early Intervention Settings
Students At Risk for Reading Difficulty
Older students needing foundational decoding support
Pre-K classrooms introducing reading foundations
Many Pre-K classrooms use the early lessons to introduce phoneme-level skills once students are ready. Instruction includes exposure to letters alongside sounds, helping students to begin forming sound-symbol connections while providing a strong bridge into kindergarten reading instruction.
Grounded in decades of converging research
Sounds of Success draws on converging evidence from experimental, longitudinal, and meta-analytic research. Its instructional design aligns with the practices shown to most strongly support reading development.
RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS
Center Instruction at the Phoneme Level
Phoneme-level instruction produces stronger reading gains than instruction focused on larger sound units.
(National Reading Panel, 2000; Rehfeld et al., 2022)
Prioritize Blending and Segmenting
These two skills show the strongest causal relationship to decoding and spelling development.
(Ehri, 2014; Brady, 2020)
Integrate Sounds with Print
Instruction that connects phonemes to letters is associated with stronger gains in phonemic awareness, reading, and spelling, and supports the development of word recognition.
(Ehri, 2005; Keesey et al., 2015; Rehfeld et al., 2022)
Sequence Instruction to Support Early Success
Careful progression supports accuracy, automaticity, and transfer.
(Geudens & Sandra, 2003; Gonzalez-Frey & Ehri, 2021)
When instruction aligns with how children learn, growth follows.
Reviewed by researchers at the Center for Research and Reform in Education at Johns Hopkins University, Sounds of Success meets ESSA Tier 4 evidence criteria, reflecting a program grounded in established reading research and a clearly defined instructional model.
As a Result...
In RSU 14, students demonstrated accelerated gains in foundational reading skills, with substantially more students meeting benchmark and a marked reduction in risk. By winter, 100% of kindergarten students met benchmark in phoneme segmentation fluency, word reading outcomes improved dramatically, and a majority of students met or exceeded benchmark in decoding unfamiliar words.
Real Educators.
Real Results.
