Publisher Summary Headsprout Reading Basics is a highly effective, balanced, and phonics-based reading program that teaches the skills and strategies necessary to sound out as well as read words. Phonemic awareness instruction is integrated throughout many of the Headsprout Reading Basics' teaching routines. Learners hear letter sounds to select visual stimuli and then hear them again as confirmation of selections. In Headsprout Reading Basics, children learn 34 carefully chosen phonetic elements that maintain a consistent pronunciation in over 85 % of the words in which they appear. An essential component of vocabulary growth is the concept that words are made of sounds that have meaning when put together. Headsprout Reading Basics teaches that words have meaning, and that they make sentences that, in turn, make stories.