Tutoring that works!

Sounds Sensible
Suggested ages: (Age 4 to 6)

​​Price:  $35.00 per session (50-minute session)


Sounds Sensible is uniquely effective as phonological awareness and beginning phonics instruction for beginning or struggling readers:

Beginning readers – essential instruction that builds the foundational skills of reading to prevent reading failure before it starts.


Struggling readers – an Orton-Gillingham based reading intervention for any student that needs pre-reading instruction.


Sounds Sensible provides hands-on instruction in the most reliable indicators of reading success: phonological awareness, alphabet knowledge, and understanding letter-sound relationships, as well as handwriting. The unique 5-step lessons are structured and sequential for the mastery of 20 consonants and short a. Sounds Sensible can be completed in 6-8 months.

Lesson Steps 

Step 1: Listening -Focuses students' attention on sounds in words,  develops listening skills, builds background knowledge, expands oral vocabulary,  and develops familiarity with print concepts.


Step 2: Rhyming - Develops students' ability to identify and manipulate rhyme through activities such as rhyme identification, categorization, providing, and matching.


Step 3: Segmentation - Builds awareness of the one-to-one correspondence between oral and written words. Segmentation and deletion activities progress from sentences, to compound words, to syllables, down to phonemes.


Step 4: Phoneme-Grapheme Relationships - Teaches letter name, its sound, and correct form for manuscript writing.


Step 5: Dictation - Develops the student's ability to connect a phoneme to its symbol in written form.