Editorial Review

The books that constitute the ‘Sound Box’ library are attractively packaged with colorful illustrations on crisp white pages. The series has been designed and written to teach phonics and words that have the appropriate sounds. The format is the same for each letter of the alphabet and includes blends as well as short and long vowels. The opening and closing pages are filled with the featured letter; the title page shows a young child with a box full of objects that start with the featured letter sound. There is a note explaining what the book concentrates on. For example, in the ‘c’ book it notes, ‘This book is the hard ’c’ sound in the story line. Blends are included. Words beginning with the soft ‘c’ sound and the ‘c-h’ sound are included at the end of the book.’ Some of the stories are better than others but the premise is the same. The little girl collects objects that go into the sound box and often something amusing or silly happens when everything is put together. In this story the little girl and all of the ‘c’ items end up at a castle with a clown for a party. The final pages recap all of the words for the featured letter in the story, introduce new words and when appropriate, if there is another sound associated with the letter, pages introduce those words. In the case of ‘c,’ words with a soft sound such as circle, cigar, circus and cereal demonstrate that this letter can have a different sound and another page lists words with the ‘c-h’ sound—chalk, chocolate, chipmunk and so forth.