The Sound Foundations literacy program has been developed over the last decade by Hilary and Tom Burkard at The Promethean Trust. It is designed to the following criteria:
Enough over-learning for severely dyslexic pupils—Prior to developing Sound Foundations, The Promethean Trust used Toe-by-Toe and SRA Spelling Mastery. These are both excellent programmes that systematically reinforce basic phonological skills. However, we found that they didn't have enough over-learning for the bottom 1% or 2%.
Simple enough to be used by parents and classroom assistants—Dyslexic children need short daily lessons, and very few schools have enough specialists to ensure that they get them. The Promethean Trust designed Sound Foundations explicitly for use by parents—especially by parents who themselves are poor at reading and spelling.
No lesson planning or record keeping—Sound Foundations is totally self-contained. It can be used at any time by almost anyone. It works well with all pupils, no matter what specific problems they may have.
Can be used with infants—We didn't realise this ourselves until the head of pre-prep at Barnardiston Hall Preparatory School 'borrowed' a copy from the special needs Department. Non-dyslexic infants become independant readers in a matter of weeks with Sound Foundations.
