Sound Movements

What Are
Sound Movements

Sound movements are a simple movement-based learning strategy for beginning readers to remember the letter sounds and the correct formation of the mouth when saying the letters' sounds. They make it easy to recognize the individual letters, paired letters, and clustered letters within words. Note: We call them solo, partner, and team sounds, respectively. As a bonus, the movements are a physical method readers can use to make it easy to blend sounds together when sounding out or spelling words.

Note: These Sound Movements have been revolutionary in helping all children learn to read. They are OPEN SOURCE to all curriculum developers to advance the entire industry of learn-to-read solutions. Learn more at openreading.com.

www.britannica.com: "In addition to speech production, the Broca area of the brain also is involved in language comprehension, in motor-related activities associated with hand movements, and in sensorimotor learning and integration."

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Solo Letter Sounds

Partner Sounds

Team
Sounds

Solo Letter
Sounds

Stretchy Sounds
Snap Sounds
Tricky Sounds
Long Vowel Sounds

Stretchy Sounds

These Solo Letter Sounds can be held a long time without distorting the sound. Hold your mouth in the same position from the start to the end of each sound to pronounce it correctly.

i (short vowel)
n
f
o (short vowel)
m
a (short vowel)
u (short vowel)

s
j
l
r
v
z
e (short vowel)

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i (short vowel)

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n

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f

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o (short vowel)

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m

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a (short vowel)

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u (short vowel)

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s

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j

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l

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r

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v

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z

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e (short vowel)

Snap Sounds

These Solo Letter Sounds should be said quickly to avoid adding extra sounds like “uh” to the end of the sound. When saying these sounds, hold your mouth as still as possible or close your mouth as soon as you finish the sound. Technically speaking, it’s best to teach the “ck” sound movement as a combination of the “c” and “k” sound movements.

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t

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d

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p

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g

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b

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c

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k

Tricky Sounds

These Solo Letter Sounds are challenging to pronounce and are often taught incorrectly. The letter “q” is almost always followed by a silent “u,” so we teach “qu” with the Solo Letter Sounds.

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h

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y

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w

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qu

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x

Long Vowel Sounds

Use the same sound movements as you do with the short vowels, but shake your hand and arm as you move them. The long-vowel sounds are typically the same as the letter’s name, so you can remember to shake the movement by thinking, “When you tell someone your name, you shake hands to say hello.” The letter “u” is unique in that its long vowel sound is usually not the same as its letter name. It also has another, commonly used alternate sound – the u (grunt/umlaut) sound.