The first room of the English sequence, and everything after it stands on this one: a letter has a name and a sound, and they are not the same thing. Stretch a word and hear its first, middle and last sound. Push three sounds together and a word comes out. Five short vowels, three pairs that make one sound, and the reason no English word gets by without a vowel. Five tabs — cards for the words, hints for the sounds chart, a quiz that asks you to hear, and a workshop where you sort first sounds, build a word from its parts, label the sound boxes and say why two letters can make one sound.
This letter is called em. That is its name — what we call it when we talk about it.
A letter’s NAME is what we call it. A letter’s SOUND is what it does inside a word. You read with the sounds — and when you push the sounds together, the word comes out.
Two things people get wrong
⚠️People often think…
To read cat, say the letters: see — ay — tee.
Those are the letters’ NAMES, and names are not for reading. The sounds are /c/ /a/ /t/. Push those together and you get cat. Push the names together and you get nothing at all.
Read with sounds, not names.
⚠️People often think…
ship has four letters, so it has four sounds.
The s and the h are standing together, and together they say one sound: /sh/. So ship is /sh/ /i/ /p/ — three sounds in four letters. Count letters with your eyes, sounds with your ears.
Two letters can make one sound.
Stretch it, then push it back together
1Watch one
Read the word sun without being told what it is.
Find the vowel first. It is the u, in the middle.
Say the first sound on its own: /s/.
Say the middle sound, then the last: /u/, then /n/.
Push them together fast: /s/ /u/ /n/ → sun.
Check it. Sun is a real word you know, so you read it right.
2Do one with me
Listen to the word map and fill the three boxes.
The first sound is
The middle sound is
The last sound is
💬One sentence, then you move on
Why can you read a word nobody has ever shown you?
3Try one
Change the first sound in cat from /c/ to /h/. Write the new word.
I want a hint first
Say /h/, then /a/, then /t/, and push them together.
Where this goes
Where this lives
Every sign, every label, every name on a lunch box. Once you can hear the sounds in a word, you can read words no one has taught you yet.
What this feeds
Next room: the words that do not play fair — the ones you have to know by sight.
Say one word out loud and count its sounds on your fingers.
One card at a time — tap “Show me” to check yourself, then Next. Start at Foundation; when those feel easy, climb.
Helpful Hints
🧭 The unit in one line
A letter has a name and a sound → stretch a word and you hear its sounds one at a time → push the sounds back together and the word comes out → and every word keeps at least one vowel sound inside it.
Name is not sound. Stretch it, then push it back together.
🔑 The one idea
Reading is not remembering what a word looks like. It is hearing the sounds inside it. A reader who can hear three sounds in cat can read a word nobody ever showed them.
⚠️ Traps to avoid
A letter's name is not its sound. The letter is called “bee,” but it says /b/. Saying “bee-a-tee” will never give you bat.
Two letters can make one sound. In ship, the s and the h are not two sounds — together they say /sh/.
The middle sound is the hard one. Stretch the word slowly — mmm-aaa-ppp — and the middle stops hiding.
Rhyme lives at the end of a word, not the start. Cat and cup start the same and do not rhyme. Cat and hat rhyme.
More letters does not mean more sounds. Ship has four letters and three sounds.
No English word gets by without a vowel sound. If you cannot find one, you have not found the whole word yet.
📐 The sounds — the chart
Letters
It says
Word
a
/a/
cat
e
/e/
bed
i
/i/
pig
o
/o/
dog
u
/u/
sun
sh
/sh/
ship
ch
/ch/
chin
th
/th/
thin
🎯 How you will be asked
“What is the first sound in this word?”
“Say the sounds: /m/ /a/ /p/. What is the word?”
“How many sounds are in ship?”
“Which two words rhyme?”
“Change the /c/ in cat to /h/. What word do you get?”
✅ Before the test, can you…
Say a letter's name and then its sound, and tell which is which?
Hear the first, middle and last sound in a three-sound word?
Blend /s/ /u/ /n/ into a word without being told what it is?
Name the five short vowel sounds and a word for each?
Explain why ship has four letters but three sounds?
Pick your level
Look back at anything you missed — the hint that appeared is exactly what to reread tonight.
How sure did you feel?
Workshop
Work like a reader who listens: send twelve words to the sound they start with, put the five steps of sounding out a word in order, label the sound boxes under a word, then say why four letters can make only three sounds.
Your practice never leaves this device. There is no account and no sign-in. Your work is saved in this browser only, and you can erase it whenever you want.
Your practice record — saved on this device
This is your record of the module on screen — it stays here and goes nowhere. Independent means you got it right on the first tap; supported means you got it after the explain-and-retry, or marked ‘I had it’ on a revealed answer. Both count, and neither is a grade. If your teacher asks, copy the row or show them this screen.
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Supported
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Lab
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Traps met
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Explained in own words
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The answer key is for a teacher: it prints only from here, for the unit on screen. Print the study packet prints the study pages and a blank quiz — never the answers.