How can Sound Symbols help students read?
WHY THIS, WHY NOW?
You might ask, “Why do we need another reading program?” Or you may be wondering, “What’s different about this program?” My goal today is to answer both of these questions, as I share some of the unique ways that the Sound Symbols approach helps students learn to read.
If you have kept up with reports on literacy rates, you already know that the ability to read has dropped significantly among adults as well as school aged students in the U.S. Our United States Census Bureau reports have indicated that literacy rates in our country were previously above 90% levels (with two thirds of states above 97%). According to the National Literacy Institute and National Center for Education Statistics, presently, 64% of our fourth graders have not achieved reading proficiency (2024-2025 Literacy Statistics National Literacy, https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/piaac/state-county-estimates.asp#4), while 54% of U.S. adults are reading below a sixth grade level.
So clearly we have a problem. And what about the solutions already in use? Based on the continued declines in literacy rates, it is also evident that the present solutions have not been adequate. In fact, the use of current approaches has been widely debated, over a long period of time. During the nineteenth century, whole language and other see and say types of approaches gained traction (over phonics) as the solution. After that whole language and phonics were combined, in programs such as “Balanced Literacy.” More recently, we have seen the pendulum swing back to support for phonics as the answer. Nevertheless, teachers and reading programs continue to rely on and bounce between these and similar approaches.
Given these challenges, what are we to do? That’s a question I also asked, during my own bouncing between methods and programs. My search compelled my development of an entirely different method and program. You can read more about my search and success in my book, describing the Sound Symbols Approach https://a.co/d/1Txe6mA. So, what did I find in my search that was different from the many programs that were available? The answer to that question will provide you with the specific ways in which the Sound Symbols Approach teaches and improves reading skills.
One of my earliest observations was that my speech students had difficulties modeling sounds, particularly when they were combined with other sounds (as in syllables, words, and longer utterances). When we worked on target sounds, they showed improved, but still had difficulties generalizing their new sound productions in varying or longer contexts. Speech students often have even more trouble applying these skills in reading tasks, leading to ongoing challenges in the area of reading.
Given my students’ difficulties, I wanted to support their efforts to speak and read. It seemed logical to me to combine these tasks early on (instead of separating them and prolonging the process). I developed the Sound Symbols Sound Circle as a tool for helping students learn and practice a variety of specific speech and early literacy skills. If you would like more details on the Sound Circle and its development, please refer to my book. https://a.co/d/1Txe6mA. Future blogs will also focus in detail on the features and unique applications of the Sound Circle. Students made notable progress in speech and reading skills as they used the Sound Circle. Use of the circle also helped students to persevere in their practice, while increasing their understanding of sounds and how sounds can be manipulated (in speech and reading tasks).
During this time period, I began to use additional visual cues. My students made even more progress when I combined visual supports with the use of the Sound Circle. Cued Speech is just one example of a visual communication system that I tried out. Cued Speech uses hand gestures near the mouth to represent sounds (instead of letters) and is used primarily with students with complete or partial hearing loss. This approach had many benefits for my students with speech and language difficulties (with and without hearing difficulties). Although I thought Cued Speech was very useful for providing my students with visual supports, both they and I grappled with the lack of intuitiveness in the design of the hand cues.
The concept of representing sounds (instead of letters) with hand gestures seemed sound and it did produce positive results in terms of improving both speech and literacy skills. I considered whether a more intuitive system could be generated and set out to test the possibility. The end result was the development of the Sound Symbols Visual Prompts, a very unique system of hand formations and movements that provide specific linguistic information for the sounds or phonemes they represent. Detailed information on these prompts is also available in my book and will be discussed in future blogs as well.
Sound Symbols Visual Prompt for “m”
By combining the use of the Sound Symbols Sound Circle with the Sound Symbols Visual Prompts, my students were able to make outstanding progress. My students were regularly being identified as the “most improved” students in their classes in reading. This level of success in the area of reading is highly unusual for speech students. Parents were so pleased with their children’s progress that they strongly encouraged me to write about my approach so that it could be shared with others. Their encouragement led me to start documenting my approach. At the same time, I looked at fine tuning what I was doing. These efforts resulted in the development of a variety of very successful supports. I have continued to develop such supports, which now include videos, tracking charts, explanations of the concept of sound prosody, and the consonant and vowel charts (which also contain some very useful and novel ways of looking at sounds for speech and reading). We will delve into these supports and their benefits in another blog.
In summary, the Sound Symbols Speaking and Reading Approach contains unique tools, supports, and features that are novel and effective in their application. We are clearly in need of a different perspective if we are to undo the downward spiral of reading proficiency in our country. The Sound Symbols Speaking and Reading Approach answers this need by providing a fresh perspective and exceptional tools to achieve needed changes. These differences in reading instruction set the Sound Symbols Speaking and Reading Approach apart!