Sound Waves Early Literacy (F–2)
Effective and engaging spelling lessons
Sound Waves Early Literacy equips teachers with training and resources to deliver explicit, systematic lessons and targeted practice that keep students engaged and learning.
Deliver effective daily lessons
Using the online teaching resources
Sound Waves Early Literacy lessons follow the gradual release of responsibility framework. In the lessons, you explicitly teach phoneme–grapheme relationships and reading skills as well as spelling patterns, vocabulary and morphology concepts.
The online teaching resources provide you with lesson guides and slideshows for every lesson to facilitate your direct instruction. The lesson guides include stepped-out instructions, helpful teaching notes and question and answer prompts – they’re effective but not scripted, making them flexible, practical and easy to use. The slideshows feature interactive tools and videos to enhance student engagement.
Foundation and Year 1 teachers also have access to projectable Sound Waves Decodable Readers for modelled and shared reading.
Start your free trial today to explore the resources firsthand.
Consolidate with targeted practice
Using the Student Books and Decodable Readers
Student Books
After each lesson, students complete the corresponding Student Book activities to consolidate the synthetic phonics and word study knowledge you have just taught. Student Books are available as a physical workbook or as printable pages.
View sample Student Book pages:
Decodable Readers
Sound Waves Decodable Readers follow the same sequence as the lessons, making them fully decodable. Use each book as targeted reading practice after the lesson. In Foundation and Year 1, Decodable Readers are an integral part of the weekly lessons.
In Year 2, students can continue to use the Year 1 (and Foundation) Decodable Readers for additional support.
Support phoneme-grapheme knowledge
Using the Teaching Charts and Student Charts
Each chart is an essential reference that features all 43 phonemes of Australian English and their common graphemes, along with word examples*.
Use the Teaching Charts for whole-class instruction and to play games. Students use their Student Chart to help them make correct grapheme choices in their everyday writing.
* For Foundation to Year 2 classrooms, the charts are available in Foundation or Standard versions. The Foundation charts only include the graphemes taught in the Foundation year. The Standard charts also include word examples.
Differentiation, interactive tools, games and more
Sound Waves Early Literacy supports teachers with meaningful tools and a range of resources to facilitate differentiation, boost engagement and enhance your weekly lessons.
Interactive tools and videos 
The online teaching resources are jam-packed with extra features to enhance your synthetic phonics and word study lessons.
Interactive tools
Use the Read, Sort and Discuss Tool, Segmenting Tool, Match Up and Word Unjumbler any time throughout the week for independent practice and consolidation, as well as within your structured Sound Waves Early Literacy lessons.
Pronunciation videos
Help students learn the 43 phonemes that make up Australian English by using the Chants and Actions videos.
For more focused pronunciation practice, every unit also includes a How to Say the Sound video that you can use to demonstrate correct articulation and model mouth position.
Game ideas and Focus Sound Searches 
Within each unit in the online teaching resources there are a handful of fun game ideas for small-group and whole-class settings to use any time throughout the week.
Your students will love applying their synthetic phonics and word knowledge skills to games such as Phoneme Chain, Find It First and Crack the Code.
Each unit also comes with an engaging Focus Sound Search – a beautiful illustration that’s packed with items containing the focus phoneme. A fantastic stimulus to reinforce phonemic awareness or use as a handy writing prompt.
Printable resources and Extension Words
A helping hand for differentiation – Sound Waves Early Literacy includes printable resources and Extension Words.
Printable resources
From segmenting sheets to prefix posters, board games, match-ups, puzzles, templates and more – you’ll find printable resources that fit a multitude of purposes.
Extension Words
Available in every unit for Years 1 and 2, students can use Extension Words in a variety of ways from segmenting practice, to games and sentence writing.
Plus – there's a handy student site!
Many of the interactive tools and unit resources are also available to students via a dedicated student site. And did we mention that student access is complimentary and included as part of your teacher access?
Students will love hopping online to play interactive games like Unjumbler and Match-Up, hone their segmenting skills using the Segmenting Tool, watch articulation videos or even use our engaging Focus Sound Searches as an inspiring writing prompt.
Quality professional learning and support
Australia-wide workshops, articles and more
Ongoing professional learning is essential for consistent and successful implementation of instruction. Our team has a wealth of teaching experience and provides tailored professional learning opportunities to support you and your school throughout the year – at no extra cost.
Request a meeting or professional learning workshop for your school, register for one of our virtual workshops, browse our articles, or simply reach out to your local Education Consultant any time of the year with your questions.
What about Years 3 to 6?
Check out our companion series Sound Waves Word Study for a deep-dive into grapheme choice, spelling patterns, morphology and etymology. This powerful approach to word study equips middle to upper primary students with the in-depth spelling skills they need for ongoing literacy success.