Success Stories
Longitudinal study of literacy development using Sounds-Write
Sounds-Write was conceived and written in 2002-3. From the outset, we encouraged schools to collect data on their students’ performance to determine the utility and effectiveness of the programme. These are the key findings from the original study, which reported on the literacy development journeys of 1,607 children from Reception to the end of Key Stage 1.
What do our customers say?
UK Case Studies
Angel Oak Academy, Peckham, London
Aspull Church School, Wigan
Chorley St James’ Primary, Lancashire
Cockton Hill Junior School, Bishop Auckland, County Durham
Corpus Christi Catholic Primary School, Bournemouth, Dorset
Courthouse Junior School, Maidenhead
East Hunsbury Primary School, Northampton
Kingswood Parks Primary School, Hull
Milecastle Primary School, Newcastle upon Tyne
Olive Hill Primary Academy, Halesowen, West Midlands
Princecroft Primary School, Warminster, Wiltshire
Sidmouth C of E Primary School, Sidmouth, Devon
St Leonard’s C of E Primary Academy, St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex
St Matthew’s C of E Primary School, Birmingham
St Michael’s C of E Primary School, Bishop Middleham, County Durham
St Oswald’s CE Aided Primary and Nursery School, Durham
Studley Green Primary School, Trowbridge, Wiltshire
Three Bridges Primary School, Southall, London
Torfield Special School, Hastings, East Sussex
Australian Case Studies
Allambie Heights Public School, Sydney
Cleveland State School, South East Queensland
Lord Howe Central School, Lord Howe Island
Parafield Gardens High School, Northern Adelaide
USA Case Studies
Johnson STEAM Academy Magnet School, Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Katie, Speech-Language Pathologist, Massachusetts
Lynbrook Union Free School District, Lynbrook, New York
Canadian Case Studies
Paul Penna Downtown Jewish Day School, Toronto
Other
Attenborough School, Germany
The British School Al Khubairat, Abu Dhabi
Sounds-Write is more than just a scheme for phonics. For Selby Community Primary School it has improved pupils’ self-esteem around reading and writing. Sounds-Write has developed stronger spellers and pupils who transfer their phonics knowledge straight into their written work.
Case Studies from Sounds-Write Practitioners
We’ve also published a book of peer-reviewed case studies in different geographical and educational settings.
Each case study includes data from a specific school (or other educational settings) and recommendations about how best to implement Sounds-Write.
In her foreword to the book, Professor Pamela Snow said:
‘The publication of three national inquiries (the US in 2000, Australia in 2005, and England in 2006) heralded something of a false dawn in putting the major debates to rest, unanimously highlighting the importance of an early focus on explicitly and systematically teaching children (as readers and writers) how the English writing system works, alongside supporting their development in phonemic awareness, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension.
Robust recommendations are one thing, but full implementation of those recommendations is something else altogether. This is why schools need access to high-quality programmes that have the heavy-lifting already done in terms of their theoretical foundations, scope and sequence, teaching materials and scripts, assessment and monitoring tools, high-quality training and coaching, and demonstration videos. Sounds-Write is such a programme, and it is no surprise that its developers have gone the extra nine yards to compile this collection of case studies about how Sounds-Write looks in action.’
(Snow, P. (2022). Foreword. In A. Beaven, A. Comas-Quinn & N. Hinton (Eds), Systematic synthetic phonics: case studies from Sounds-Write practitioners (pp. xv-xvi). Research-publishing.net. https://doi.org/10.14705/rpnet.2022.55.1https://research-publishing.net/book?10.14705/rpnet.2022.55.9782383720010353)