Letter Sounds 2

Digraphs, Trigraphs & Endings

Easily teach the links between letter patterns and speech sounds for reading and spelling with phonics.

What is Letter Sounds™ 2 Pro? 

The evidence from reading research is clear: letter-sound knowledge is crucial in learning to read and spell. However, learning the links between letter patterns and speech sounds is not easy! Once students have learnt the speech sounds that single letters typically represent (taught in Letter Sounds™ 1 Pro), students need to learn the speech sounds typically represented by letter patterns (such as 'igh' like in 'light' and 'sh' like in 'ship'). Letter Sounds™ 2 Pro provides a unique, fun and highly engaging way for students of all ages to learn the relationships between groups of letters and speech sounds for reading and spelling! 

Letter Sounds™ 2 Pro includes 70 of the most common letters-sound patterns and suffixes. The app is fully customisable and a perfect complement to any phonics program. We are confident that it will become a favourite teaching tool for anyone interested in teaching students to read and spell. Letter Sounds™ 2 Pro is based on research into reading acquisition and was developed by reading specialist and speech-language pathologist Dr. Bartek Rajkowski, PhD. Anybody with an interest in teaching children to read through phonics can use Letter Sounds™ 2 Pro to help children learn common letter-sound relationships!

Why is letter-sound knowledge so important? 

The past several decades of research have provided conclusive evidence that children who are strong readers are skilled in using letter-sound knowledge to learn new words when reading. Skilled readers are good at understanding that words are made up of speech sounds (a skill called phonemic awareness) and they are also good at understanding how these speech sounds are represented by letters. This knowledge helps children to decode written language and teach themselves new words. Difficulties with these skills are hallmarks of the struggling reader. Furthermore, teaching methods that begin by teaching students letter-sound relationships (called ‘synthetic phonics’ methods) have been shown through research to be more effective than other approaches in teaching reading, regardless of whether students do or do not have reading difficulties. The evidence is clear: letter-sound knowledge is crucial in learning to read and spell since it helps students to teach themselves new words. 

How does Letter Sounds™ 2 Pro help? 

Understanding that letters typically represent certain speech sounds poses a challenge to beginning readers since there is no meaningful relationship between the way that letters look and the speech sounds they typically represent. For example, there is no reason why the squiggle “igh” represents the sound /igh/ as in “light”. Children must also learn to distinguish between similar letter patterns and sounds (e.g. “oa” like in "boat" vs “ou" like in "around"). 

Letter Sounds™ 2 Pro uses a patent pending, self-adjusting, multisensory teaching method to help teach beginning and struggling readers to rapidly, automatically and accurately recognise and discriminate between the most common letter-sound patterns in English. Children are taught meaningful associations between the way that letters look and the speech sounds they typically represent through a unique system of visual, auditory and articulatory (speech sound) memory aids, or mnemonics. The teaching system in the app automatically identifies what a child knows, what the child does not know, and which letter-sound patterns the child confuses. Letter Sounds™ 2 Pro teaches children to discriminate between confusing patterns, and strengthens weaknesses in letter-sound understanding. 

Who should use Letter Sounds™ 2 Pro? 

Letter Sounds™ 2 Pro is ideal for helping beginning readers, students with reading difficulties and students learning English as a second language. It is a perfect complement to any phonics program and is fully customisable, making it easy to set up custom activities to teach students specific letter-sound patterns. We are confident it will quickly become a favourite tool for teachers, parents, reading specialists and anybody else with an interest in the teaching of reading and spelling! 

Which letter-sound patterns are included?

Letter Sounds™ 2 Pro includes letter-sound tiles, adjustable visual mnemonics (memory aids), studio-quality sound recordings and animations of mouth movements for the following core letter-sound patterns in English:

24 vowel letter-sound patterns consisting of 2 or more letters, for example:

• "igh" like in "light"

• "ee" like in "see"

• "oo" like in "spoon"

15 consonant letter-sound patterns consisting of 2 or more letters, for example:

• "sh" like in "ship"

• "th" like in "mouth"

• "dge" like in "bridge"

14 "r-controlled" letter-sound patterns consisting of 2 or more letters, for example:

• "er" like in "her"

• "ar" like in "car"

• "ore" like in "shore"

9 common ending letter-sound patterns, for example:

• "ing" like in "wing"

• "le" like in "little"

• "ous" like in "famous"

Summary of Features

• Created by a reading specialist

• Scientifically-based

• Easy to use

• Fun, intuitive and powerful teaching tool

• Perfect for students who have mastered single letter-sound links (taught in LetterSounds™ 1 Pro), older students with reading difficulties or students of English as a second language (ESL)

• Helps teach knowledge of letter patterns (beyond single letters and their corresponding speech sounds) and phonemic awareness skills

• Patent-pending, adjustable memory-aid system helps students remember letter-sound patterns

• Create and save custom letter-sound sets to complement any synthetic phonics approach

• Includes preset letter-sound tile sets for popular synthetic phonics programs Jolly Phonics and MULTILIT

How to get Letter Sounds™ 2 Pro

Letter Sounds™ 2 Pro is available on iPad. To view it on the app store or to buy and download it, click on the button below:

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