Cambridge, MA, March 22, 2004 — Renowned reading specialist Sheila Clark-Edmands, M.S.Ed., released the 2nd edition of Sounds Sensible™, the highly successful Pre-K-1 phonological awareness and beginning phonics program. Sounds Sensible is the first level of S.P.I.R.E.® (Specialized Program Individualizing Reading Excellence), also authored by Ms. Clark-Edmands. Both programs are published exclusively by Educators Publishing Service (EPS).

Over 30 years experience working with children with learning differences has helped Ms. Clark-Edmands develop the systematic, multisensory scope and sequence of Sounds Sensible that closely follows childhood language development.  Use of these concepts has produced outstanding results.

“Teaching phonics is not new,” explains Clark-Edmands, an Orton-Gillingham Fellow, “but reading is far more than phonics. What has been missing from the field of reading is fully developed material that offers students a variety of opportunities to both practice the skills they learn and appreciate enriched reading content.”

An advantage of Sounds Sensible over other phonological awareness programs is that it works well as the first level of any core program or as supportive/supplementary instruction for beginning readers in Grades pre-K–1. Its Orton-Gillingham philosophy also makes Sounds Sensible uniquely effective as part of an intervention, a remedial, or an inclusion reading program.

The Sounds Sensible program includes a Teacher’s Manual that provides detailed instructions and scripts for addressing five skill areas: listening; rhyming; segmenting; learning phoneme/grapheme relationships; and dictation. Key Word Concept Sheets introduce each letter, its keyword, and its sound, and picture and letter cards illustrate beginning sounds, matching rhymes, and more. Activities and games provide extensive review in an entertaining way.

Sounds Sensible is currently in use nationwide by regular education and special education teachers, reading specialists, and parents. The program materials provide teachers and parents with a step-by-step process for reaching the learning needs of children, beginning in the critical early grades of Pre-K-1. “It’s important that students’ weaknesses are identified and resolved early - before the child falls behind,” notes Clark-Edmands. “With Sounds Sensible, children and teachers are motivated by success, because they are exposed to reading material that contains concepts they have been taught. They learn the joy of discovery that comes with reading fluency.”

Never before has a phonological awareness and beginning phonics program combined such a logical, systematic, research-based approach. Students learn with Sounds Sensible because it successfully translates theory and research results into effective, practical classroom methodology and tools. Sounds Sensible is available for $225 exclusively through EPS.

Sheila Clark-Edmands, M.S. Ed. developed the S.P.I.R.E. program based on over 30 years experience working with children with learning differences.  She has been a teacher, administrator, and educational consultant and has been published in the LDA of America and featured in the Wall Street Journal. Ms. Clark-Edmands is an Orton-Gillingham Fellow and studied under Alice Garside and Dr. Edwin Cole at Massachusetts General Hospital. In addition to her responsibilities as an author, she trains classroom teachers and continues her work with children.

EPS (www.epsbooks.com), based in Cambridge, Mass., is a division of Delta Education, LLC, and provides trusted literacy solutions for every child. Their K-12 reading and language arts materials support the diverse abilities in today’s classroom offering reading, phonics, comprehension, and vocabulary programs for the general classroom, as well as programs designed to support at-risk and struggling readers in specialized settings and inclusion classrooms. EPS has long been a leader in providing materials for dyslexic students and those with other specific learning differences.  Their leading products include Explode the Code, Wordly Wise 3000, Words I Use and S.P.I.R.E.

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