Sound English books & software

Books

The fifty Sound English® books meet the need to provide adults who are new to Australian English with suitable reading material. Although there are many excellent resources available for children, there is a shortage of resources that:

• provide adults and teens with high quality, simple reading materials

• support learners as they learn the sounds used in Australian pronunciation

• present spelling choices in a carefully structured, easy-to-follow manner.

Each book includes detailed but simple tutor notes.

How is Sound English structured?

There are three levels:
Preliminary, Level 1 and Level 2.

Preliminary	Ten books that introduce essential sight words and provide illustrations that form a useful basis for talking with the tutor.
Level 1	Twenty books that introduce 23 basic sounds of Australian English. The language is simple, with a full-colour illustration on every page.
Level 2	Twenty books that introduce the remaining 21 sounds. These use more complex text designed to provide repeated exposure to sounds covered in earlier books.

For a humorous insight into why newcomers to English have difficulties, try reading aloud The Chaos.

Software

Sound English® Software is an important enhancement to the Sound English® texts. It is based on the highly acclaimed approach used in Greygum Software’s software to accompany Fitzroy Talking Readers, Spinout Stories and the PM Story Books.

As each page is shown on the screen students can try reading it aloud, then listen to male and female voices model the correct pronunciation in an Australian accent. If a word is causing difficulty students can click on it to hear it spoken by a different voice.

An essential part of the software is a set of questions and activities for each of the books, along with facilities for students to write their own text for each page, then print it and make it into their own book. Level 1 packages also offer spelling exercises.

Packs of Preliminary Level, Level 1 Books 1-10 and Level 1 Books 11-20 are available for Windows and Mac computers. Available on the same CDROM for
• Windows (Windows 98 and later, including Windows 8)
• Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) and later.

Note: The software is not available for Level 2 books.

Site licences and Lending Library editions are available to educational institutions and public libraries.

Download the
software details

All prices shown are in AUD. App prices are as stated in the App Store.

Sound English materials are designed and published by Publishing & Data, 8 Campbell Street, Castlemaine, Victoria 3450, Australia. ABN 60 194 612 833

Apps

The Sound English apps allow students to practise reading in privacy, and in their own time.

They present the text and pictures in the books. The student taps the speaker icon to hear the whole page read. Each word is underlined while it is spoken by a human voice.

A single word can be heard spoken in a different voice by tapping on it.

In Level 1A (1-10) and 1B (11-20) books, if this word contains the phoneme featured in the book it will be spoken first, then the whole word.

From the same authors...

Spinout Stories

High-interest software and books aimed at boys aged 10-14.