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A mother in Georgia shares:

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After needing a lot of practice, my two year old son mastered his first three souns. I decided to introduce him to “t” today. I gave him his “t”. He immediately caught on and confidently said “t” over and over. I then added a “sss” next to the “t”. After reminding him of the two sounds, I asked him which one was the “t”. He pointed and repeated “t”. Then with the most incredulous look he could muster, he said in almost a panic, ” where my ahhh (o)??”My two year old spilled some baking soda on the counter today. I couldn’t pass up such a perfect opportunity to draw letters in the spilled baking soda. We drew o’s over and over together in the powder. He was so excited to be drawing something that he knows has real meaning. His face shone with delight. His ahh (o) was right next to his work.  Although he doesn’t have the fine motor skills to draw the other letters without extensive help, he delighted in drawing his beloved  ahh (o) over and over. Throughout these exercises I could really see the importance and thoroughness of the whole brain, Montessori approach.

Later in the day, I was working with my five year old with the sandpaper letters. He remains somewhat resistant to working with anything related to reading. I decided to have a quick lesson with my two year old, knowing my five year old would be watching and listening intently. I happened to be working with t, o, and s, all of which my two year old is familiar with from his souns. Although we haven’t done much work with the more abstract form of the letters (with my two year old), he excitedly pointed to each letter while making the sound. He then saw his favorite letter and said with great excitement, “there my ahh!” As I suspected, my five year old was watching and quickly said, t-ahh-ss, toss!

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Hope for children in Adjuntas, Puerto Rico

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This email is in regards to my Adjuntas parent visit last week.  We will have another one this week so expect more updates SOON and even some pictures SOON!  Although the work we are doing with Early and HeadStart is amazing, my experience last week was beyond words and something that I have been now thinking about for days.
Allow me to share for a moment:
2hrs+ into a rural mountain, past every curve imanigible, I was met by 5 young moms and their babies.  There were 2 (3) yr olds and 3 children under 2.
When those little babies saw the Souns they clinged onto them and interacted with the materials with pure unadulterated joy.  I printed matching letters and the children knew to put the Souns on them without prompting!  How neat!
The moms, in reaction to their babies’ delight, were incredibly impacted by the very idea that THEY would be delivering literacy to their children.  Humble mothers as their children’s first teachers? Teaching them to love sounds, letters, reading, books? Them? YES! YES! YES!
 I left the set with the pastor’s wife as they would like to go over a Souns activity during Sunday school with all the children.
We will be holding a weekly meeting at 11:30 am on Wends until the group is going then, they will continue to meet and I will visit once a month.  The church has graciously provided a room for this program.
Part of my time with them was spent, as is my nature, in truly connecting with the moms such that they could see that my efforts are those of a MOM just like them that found HOPE and decided that HOPE was not just for my child but for every child.  I encouraged them to share the message and program with everyone they knew.  I communicated that it will be US, along with organizations like Rotary and programs such as EarlyStart or parent groups, that will change this world and our children’s reality.  The work begins with US.  Everyone excercising the power of ONE.  As a new Rotarian and long time “Power of ONE” advocate, I think we might just have some future Rotarians in the bunch and not just emergent readers!
As a matter of fact, two of the moms asked me about starting a second group at a nearby community center where there are 30 moms with preschoolers but no programs. I will keep you posted on that as they coordinate it or give me more details.
Once again thank you and please thank the classroom sponsor on all their (and my) behalf.
With love,
Nikolai
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As a children’s librarian..

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As a children’s librarian for one of the Atlanta-Fulton Public Library System, I have incorporated the Souns program into my story time for toddlers.  It is amazing how quickly the children are able to identify those souns that have been introduced to them!  I have also noticed that they get attached to one particular sound and don’t want to let it go.

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“I did it!!!” said my 3 year old son!

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My son has had Souns since he was an infant. At 3 he became interested in reading the canvas cards as he had found a few words in the environment that he had sounded out on his own and he had been constructing words with his souns for several months. Within 2 sittings he was hooked on the canvas cards, devouring them and demanding we go through as many as we have (which I think is close to 100!).  There were some sound combinations he had not been introduced to yet, such as “sh” and “ch” but he kept on asking for more information. If I had brought the cards to him he would never have shown the same interest, this was all his initiative. So the other day at 3 ½ I brought a book to him from the library that was an early reader, focusing on three and four letter short vowel words and asked him to read to me. His exact words were, “I can’t read”. I told him that he DOES read all the time when he reads the canvas cards. His response, “Well, I can’t read books!”. He decoded the first word and didn’t blend it, then went to the second word and realized it was exactly like his canvas cards and, voila, he began to read the entire book to me. At first he would decode each word, then go back and read each fluently, but by the third page he began sounding it out in his head and truly reading. When he finished the 10 pages, the look on his face was priceless. If I had it on video, it would look like a cheesy commercial. He yelled, “I did it!!!” and gave me a big hug. I never even knew he actually cared! He was so proud. And so am I. The Souns program has created 2 readers in my house! Both without a single tear, and without anyone (including me), feeling like they had to “work” on it.

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SounsAfrica letter from Hartenbos Lower School!!!

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SOUNS-PROGRAMME

With reference to your visit to our school for the introduction of the SOUNS-programme, I hereby would like to mention our impressions. As the development of a sound level of literacy of our learners is of great importance to us, we as Foundation Phase educators of Hartenbos Primary, were very impressed by the SOUNS-programme. The simplicity, together with the effective emphasis on the auditive perception of sounds, without unnecessary and sometimes senseless associations with which sounds are taught to very young learners, impressed us tremendously.

It was a pleasant surprise to us to observe the noticeable effect of the concrete handling of the sounds together with the auditive support on the target group of learners in one of our Grade R classes.

Considering the fact that we have three Grade R classes in our school which serve as alimentary canal for our Gr 1 classes, we would very much like to use the SOUNS-programme in our Gr R classes, but unfortunately we do not have the necessary funds for the purchase thereof, at our disposal. We would really appreciate any assistance from you in planning a way to obtain one or two of these excellent programmes.

You mentioned that the Mossel Bay Rotarians might be able to assist with the financing of the SOUNS-programmes.

I hope to hear from you soon.

Kind regards

HEAD OF DEPARTMENT : PRINCIPAL
FOUNDATION PHASE