Sound Waves
Spelling starts with sounds
Sound Waves uses systematic synthetic phonics and word study to effectively teach spelling skills. This research-aligned approach will help students become spelling superstars.
Join over 10,000 Australian classrooms using Sound Waves.
Sound Waves is the only whole-school synthetic phonics program based on the 43 sounds of Australian English. With a range of flexible, award-winning resources – it’s a systematic approach for students, a practical choice for teachers and the perfect fit for Australian classrooms.
Written by teachers for teachers
Informed by research
Flexible product options
Ongoing support for teachers
Synthetic phonics
A powerful pedagogy for spelling and reading
Sound Waves uses synthetic phonics to explicitly and systematically teach students how sounds (phonemes) are represented by letter/s (graphemes) to form written words.
Instruction is intentionally pre-planned so that students progress from learning simple, broadly applicable phoneme–grapheme relationships to those that are more complex and unusual.
Read Sound Waves and synthetic phonics: The facts for more research, longitudinal studies and reports about the effectiveness of synthetic phonics.
Word study
Spark your students’ interest in language
Successful spelling also relies on an understanding that words can be constructed from meaningful parts.
Sound Waves gets students excited about word study across all year levels through progressive activities that explore morphology (prefixes, suffixes and Greek and Latin roots), and language concepts like homophones and homographs.
Upper primary students delve deeper into etymology (word origins), helping them to understand and remember unusual or difficult words.
Explicit teaching
Success starts with effective instruction
Explicit teaching is an effective way to introduce phoneme–grapheme relationships, spelling strategies and language concepts to your students, which is why it forms the basis of all Sound Waves lessons.
Every lesson plan and slideshow is created to support the explicit teaching of spelling. We provide the resources so you can deliver lessons with ease.
Curriculum
Specifically written for Australian classrooms
Sound Waves is based on the phonemes of Australian English and follows a logical scope and sequence that aligns with all state and national curricula.
Scope and Sequence Foundation (Term View)
Scope and Sequence Years 1–6 (Weekly View)
Scope and Sequence Years 1–6 (Focus Concepts)
Scope and Sequence Year 7 (Weekly View)
Scope and Sequence Year 7 (Focus Concepts)
Your whole-school approach to spelling
Sound Waves supports a whole-school approach with a plethora of teaching and learning resources from Foundation to Year 6.
Give students the best start with Foundation 
Sound Waves Foundation has two phases. Teaching begins with an introduction to phonemes in Phase 1: Exploring Sounds before progressing to phoneme–grapheme relationships in Phase 2: Discovering Graphemes.
A consistent structure for Years 1 to 6 
Sound Waves teaches 36 units of work in the same order across Years 1 to 6. This consistent structure is perfect for students to build on their spelling knowledge each year and ideal for managing multi-age classrooms.
The spiral curriculum of Sound Waves offers students multiple opportunities to conquer difficult words and concepts, both within and across year levels.
Cater for a range of student abilities
Activities and List Words are graded from easy to difficult, creating differentiation opportunities for all students in your classroom.
Keep your fast finishers engaged with Extension Words and Challenges, giving you time to provide extra support and remediation for struggling students using the wealth of resources and activities available.
Teacher support
Workshops, articles, videos and more
We believe in supporting teachers. So, we’ve curated a range of professional development and support options to enhance your synthetic phonics knowledge and help you get the most out of Sound Waves.
Register for a workshop delivered by one of our experts, browse our professional learning articles and videos, or find technical support and answers to frequently asked questions.
It’s all there, all year round! Explore now.