Sing Your Way Through Phonics CDs and Mini-Charts provide a host of phonemic awareness activities for parents who wish to help their students progress in reading and writing. To help parents decide where to begin, we’ve developed an assessment checklist that indicates the volume number and song that can serve as a starting point for helping your child become a skilled reader and writer. Read through the following list of skills. When you reach an item where your answer is “no” or “sometimes,” we suggest you begin working with that volume and phonics song. Visit our how parents use our products and lesson plan pages for additional guidance about teaching the phonics concepts. To get the most out of Sing Your Way Through Phonics CDs, students need a visual link to the printed word. We strongly recommend using our coordinated Mini-Charts to provide the critical visual link to print.

Note: The symbol / / means “the sound of” the letter between the two slashes.
Example: /b/ = the sound we pronounce at the beginning of the words boy and ball.

Key: Y=Yes  N=No  S=Sometimes

Does my child...	Examples	Y	N	S	Vol.	Song
recognize rhyming words in songs and poems?	bear, wear, hair, care goose, loose, moose, juice				Ready to Read	Rhyme in Time
recognize words that begin with the same sounds?	Peter Piper picked a peck of prickly pickled peppers.				Ready to Read	Tongue Tangle
discriminate among same and different beginning sounds?	book, dog, baby girl, grass, tree, goat				Ready to Read	Words in My Pocket
segment words between onset and rime? blend onset and rime into words?	c-at cat b-at bat r-ing ring k-ing king				Ready to Read	Guess What I Am Hiding
match letters and sounds for word beginnings?	boy, ball=Bb dog, dish=Dd jelly, jam=Jj kitten, kite=Kk				Ready to Read	Who Knows the Letter?
recognize and print capital letters?	A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z				Vol. 1	Alphabet Letters
recognize and print lower-case letters that look different from capitals?	a b d e f g h l m n q r t				Vol. 1	Little Partners
pronounce the right sound when viewing the consonant letters? b c d f g h j k l m n p q r s t v w z	B or b is pronounced /b/ F or f is pronounced /f/				Vol. 1	What’s That Sound?
spell the beginning consonant letter when hearing words?	boy begins with letter b or B fish begins with letter f or F				Vol. 1	What’s That Sound?
know which letters are vowels?	A-a E-e I-i O-o U-u and sometimes Y-y				Vol. 1	Name That Vowel
recognize and pronounce the short vowel sounds?	/a/ in cat, /e/ in get, /i/ in big /o/ as hot, /u/ as bug				Vol. 1	Oh, Do You Know?
recognize and pronounce the long vowel sounds?	/a/ in cake, /e/ in deer, /i/ in bike /o/ in boat, /u/ in rule				Vol. 1	Oh, Do You Know?
read and spell short vowel rhyming word families?	cat-rat-sat, get-let-set, big-dig-pig dog-jog-log, bug-dug-rug				Vol. 1	Spelling Families
pronounce the consonant digraph sound when viewing the letters? sh th ch kn gn ph, ck, wr (infrequently, mb, mn, lf)	Th or th is pronounced /th/ in think Ch or ch is pronounced /ch/ in chop mb is pronounced /m/ in lamb lf is pronounced /f/ in calf				Vol. 1	Two Little Letters
spell the consonant digraph letters when thinking of a word?	/th/ is spelled t-h in they, both, mother /ch/ is spelled c-h in chick, reach, teacher				Vol. 1	Two Little Letters
pronounce the beginning consonant blend when viewing the letters?  cl, cr, dr, fr, fl, gl, gr, pl, pr, sc, scr, sk, sl, st, str, sp, spl, spr, st, str, squ, sw, tr, tw	Cl or cl is pronounced /cl/ in class Tw or tw is pronounced /tw/ in twin Str or str is pronounced /str/ in strap				Vol. 1	Two Little Letters
pronounce the ending consonant blend when viewing the letters? ct, ft, lf, lk, lt, lm, nd, ng, nt, pt, rd, rf, rn, rm, rt, sk, sp, st, rst, nst, wn	ct is pronounced /ct/ in act nt is pronounced /nt/ in ant rst is pronounced /rst/ in first				Vol. 1	Two Little Letters
spell the consonant blend letters when thinking of a word?	clip begins with letters c-l spot begins with letters s-p ring ends with letters n-g				Vol. 1	Two Little Letters
read one-syllable words with two adjacent vowels (regular spellings) ai, ea, ee, ie, oa, ue	rain, beat, feet, pie, coat, clue				Vol. 1	Talking and Walking
read one-syllable words with a vowel and a final e	bake, Pete, ride, note, huge				Vol. 1	Silent E
read one-syllable words with irregular spellings	bread, thread, spread fold, hold, gold, find, mind caught, taught				Vol. 1	Outlaws
think of several ways to spell each long vowel sound	long a: bake, pain, say long e: beat, feet, many, me long i: ice, tie, by, high long o: boat, no, home, slow long u: use, new, zoo, blue				Vol. 2	Spelling Choices
read and spell words containing the letters c-e, c-i, and c-y	cent, peace, spice, fence cider, Cindy, circle fancy, Nancy				Vol. 2	Soft C
read and spell words with r-controlled vowels	car, bar, far her, sir, fur, dollar, actor for, door, court, oar bear, care, where, wear, chair				Vol. 2	Bossy R
read and spell words with the sounds: /u/ as in put and look /oo/ as in cool and new /aw/ as in law, auto, and all	book, good, push boot, grew lawn, autumn, ball				Vol. 2	Cool Vowels
read and spell words with vowel diphthongs: o-i, o-y, o-w, o-u	boil, boy how, shout				Vol. 2	The Right Diphthong
recognize the number of syllables in words	dog, chicken, butterfly, alligator, hippopotamus				Vol. 2	Syllables
read and spell words in which the final consonant is doubled before adding suffixes	batting, runner bigger, biggest				Vol. 2	Better Double That Letter
read and spell words which follow the i-e and e-i rule	believe, friend neighbor, eight ceiling, receive				Vol. 2	I Before E
form many types of contractions	didn’t, isn’t, aren’t don’t, won’t we’d, she’ll, I’m				Vol. 2	Contraction Action
form plurals and third person verbs from root words ending in s, f, x, sh, ch, and z	buses, leaves, foxes, bushes, lunches, buzzes				Vol. 2	More Than One
read and spell common w-h words	which, what, who, whose, whom, why, where, when				Vol. 3	Who Knows?
form singular and plural possessives using apostrophe-s or s-apostrophe	boy’s jackets, boys’ jackets children’s book, firemen’s truc				Vol. 3	Belongings
read and spell words with letters c-h that sound like /k/	Christmas, school, chorus archeology, bronchitis				Vol. 3	There Is No K in Christmas
read and spell words in which the letter s has alternate pronunciations	sugar, rose, measure, Russia				Vol. 3	When S is Sweet as Sugar
read and spell words in which the letter y is replaced with the letter i before adding suffixes	baby/babies  funny/funnier/funniest				Vol. 3	Why Does Y?
read, spell, and understand meanings of common prefixes and suffixes	bi=two (bicycle) pre=done in advance (preview)  ful=full of this (wonderful)				Vol. 3	Hats and Bootsw11
read, spell, and understand the meanings of common homonyms	their, there, they’re through, threw				Vol. 3	Same But Different
read and spell words in which the final e is dropped before adding i-n-g	face, facing move, moving				Vol. 3	Drop It!
spell one-vowel words in which final consonants are doubled or accompanied by a partner letter	block, stuff, pill, class				Vol. 3	Lonely Consonants
read and spell words with alternate spellings for the suffix /shun/	fraction, extension, magician, mission, mansion				Vol. 3	Extension Tension