When first learning to recognize, produce, and manipulate sounds, students tend to associate sounds with the alphabet characters' gestures. When a student can't come up with a sound, silently gesturing the sound will usually enable the child to remember it. This advances to students associating each character's picture with the character's sound. Gradually, letter symbols and patterns take over for gestures and pictures and students are on their way to independent reading. The flash cards play an important role in this progression. In the early stages, full size picture cards are used in the sound play activities. Half size picture cards soon replace full size cards. As the pictures begin to fade away, the flash cards in part 1 with reduced sized pictures with large bold letters can be used. Finally, flash cards from Part 2 are used in the sound manipulation activities and students view letters and letter patterns with no pictures.
