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Thank you for choosing this Reading Champs Instructional Handbook (this publication). The information contained within this and other publications within this series is intended to provide a schema for sequential development of the basic skills necessary to succeed in learning to read--at any age. Each individual handbook presents a highly-focused view on a specific topic.

With that being said, let us state clearly that this publication is copyrighted under U.S. Title 17 and ALL RIGHTS ARE RESERVED. This means you may not copy this publication, or any part thereof, for any reason other than to print ONE authorized copy for your personal use. You may not sell or give away a copy of this publication. Further, you are hereby noticed that anyone violating the terms of this Copyright and Notice is in violation of United States Federal Statutes and may be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

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The English alphabet is made up of 26 letters. Of these, five (a, e, i, o, and u) are regular vowels and two (y and w) are semi-vowels. Semi vowels are letters which can be used as vowels in certain situations. The remaining letters in the alphabet are consonants.

Our language would be much easier to learn and simpler to use if each letter had only one sound. Unfortunately, many of the letters have more than one sound. For this reason, learning the sounds of letters takes place in nine stages, each of them building upon those previously learned.

The sounds of individual letters can make decoding of unknown words much easier. The first category to be learned is the 15 consonant sounds that are consistent and remain the same in most cases. These consonant letters are: b, d, f, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, r, t, v, z, and (usually) w.

Once students learn these 15 sounds, they will have mastered over one-third of the sounds in the English language. They will also have learned an important tool for constructing simple (single syllable) words.

CSML-010 / 090220

Copyright 2007, 2009 -- Rita M. Wirtz, M.A., and Donald E. Werve, Jr., M.Ed. -- All Rights Reserved