Use this Sound Story with all of the Sound City Reading books and workbooks. It is to be read aloud to the students by the teacher. During the story, a number of environmental and voice sounds are described and pictured. For example a dog growls, chains on a swingset screech, and violins play beautiful music. People cry out with various sounds of surprise (oh), confusion (uh), pain (ow), or enjoyment (mm). As each sound is introduced, students see a picture depicting that sound as well as the alphabet letter that represents that sound.

Students who have not learned the alphabet should learn the sound pictures from part 1 of the sound story first, and then learn the letters by relating each letter to a sound picture. Part 2 of the sound story introduces more sound pictures, which teach the long vowel sounds, special vowel sounds, and consonant digraph sounds. When students are studying phonogram patterns (ai/rain, aw/saw, oo/moon, ee/feet, sh/ship, etc.), they will use the sound pictures from part 2 of the story to learn the sounds.

It is very important for the teacher to say the sounds correctly when teaching them. The letters should not have the /uh/ sound added to them. Say /t/, not /tuh/. The letters w, qu, and y are almost always pronounced /wuh/, /quuh/, and /yuh/. Listen to the sounds for these letters on the next page pronounced without the /uh/ on the end. It will sound odd to you, but when the letters are pronounced and taught correctly, it makes it much easier for students to sound out words.

The pictures from the Sound Story are used in the various workbooks and practice booklets to remind the student of the correct sound for the letter or phonograms being studied.

You can listen to Parts 1 and 2 and of the sound story and the sound charts read aloud using the links below.