Help Desk

For technical support and answers to our most frequently asked questions.

Can I use the Sound Waves Decodable Readers if I’m not using Sound Waves Spelling?

Back to Planning and Teaching articles

Can I use the Sound Waves Decodable Readers if I’m not using Sound Waves Spelling?

Sound Waves Reading

Yes! While the recommended approach is to use the Sound Waves Decodable Readers alongside Sound Waves Spelling (because they follow the same teaching sequence), you can use the Decodable Readers with a different synthetic phonics program.

You will need to review the Sound Waves Decodable Readers Scope and Sequence to ensure each Decodable Reader is only read after students have been explicitly taught the focus phoneme–grapheme relationship and all preceding phoneme–grapheme relationships and Special Words.

For example, the Decodable Reader The Bus focuses on the grapheme b. To read this book, students need to have been taught the previous graphemes and Special Words in the sequence (graphemes: m, a, t, s, I, d, f, n, p, o, r, g, e, h, k, c and u, and the Special Words: I, a, is, off, has, the, my and to). Students also need to be taught the focus grapheme b prior to reading The Bus. You can do this by using the Warm Up on the inside front cover of The Bus as a teaching stimulus or by implementing teaching resources from your synthetic phonics program.

Having trouble with our products?

Submit a Help Desk request