Under an initiative called "Sounds-Write," adopted by the school district more than two years ago, words are not just letters on a board, but sounds with interconnected meaning.

"The Vowel A" teaches viewers about the short and long sounds of the vowel letter A. It explains how the presence of a final 'e' at the end of words changes the sound of A from short to long.

Decodable books give students the opportunity to recognize and practice the letter and sound pairings they’ve been explicitly taught, either through classroom or at-home instruction.

Although practice on letter sounds is helpful, our study suggests it is more beneficial to give children extra practice in sounding out the letters AND blending the sounds together to make a word." ...

The activity helps link spoken sounds to written letters, but also the processes of reading and writing words, said Robertson. “We need to be thinking both [about] linking sound to letter but ...