The Imagine Sonday Systems 1 & 2 (SS1 & SS2) pedagogical framework

Imagine Sonday Systems 1 and 2 (SS1 and SS2) are structured intervention curricula designed to solve and prevent reading failure. They focus not only on accuracy but also on automaticity of English decoding and encoding.

The Sonday System covers the 5 essential components of reading instruction—phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension—and is based on Orton-Gillingham methodology aligned with Science of Reading research. The system is named after its creator, Arlene Sonday, who was a Founding Fellow and the first president of the Orton-Gillingham Academy.

The essential elements of Orton-Gillingham instruction are:

  • Direct and explicit instruction: No one is born knowing how to read; we all have to be taught. Learning to read is not natural (unlike learning to speak, for example); therefore, it must be taught explicitly. SS1 and SS2 use a gradual release model of I do, you do, we do and never assume students can guess or already know the answers.
  • Simultaneous multisensory activities: Students see, hear, and feel/do all at the same time, which creates new neural pathways in the brain. The tactile component of the reading exercises is tracing to help blend sounds, while the tactile component of the spelling exercises is Touch Spelling to help with phoneme and syllable segmentation.
  • Systematic and cumulative: Spelling instruction begins with the easiest and most common sounds and concepts and progresses to the more difficult and less common ones. Each step is based on concepts previously learned. Reading lists at each step include only patterns that have already been taught. This increases success and builds confidence in budding readers.
  • Synthetic and Structured: The order in which sounds are introduced is based on a carefully designed scope and sequence that progresses from easier skills to more difficult ones and separates the introduction of sounds that may be easily confused, so that students have time to master each concept. Students are taught to blend and segment words with progressively more phonemes and which use more difficult patterns only after they master each previous concept. 
  • Diagnostic and prescriptive: Mistakes are fixed in the moment in direct response to student performance. Students are provided with multiple repetitions to target errors and train the brain for automaticity. Lesson plans are designed to be easily individualized for student need based on continuous assessment. 

SS1 and SS2 teach both reading and spelling, with a dual goal of automaticity and accuracy. Repetition is used to achieve automaticity. While a typical reader may need only 3 or 4 exposures to a word to map it, a struggling reader may need 20, 40, 100, or even more. 

Both systems explicitly teach the English language rules, and the second system builds on the first. Although they are not closely aligned with grade levels, SS1 is generally for students of any age with a reading level of about Grades K–2 and SS2 is for students with a reading level of Grade 3+.

The topics covered in each system are:

  • SS1: Short vowels, long vowels, blends, digraphs, compound words, and the suffixes -ing and -er

     Note

    The sounds of the alphabet are covered largely as review in the Pre-Reading Levels in SS1 before starting Level 1 in SS1. They are covered in-depth in the Lets Play Learn (LPL) curriculum. 

  • SS2: Syllable types, syllable division, trigraphs, spelling rules, prefixes, suffixes, and roots

The systems are designed for small group, teacher-led instruction with no more than 6 students per group. Each system is divided into over 30 levels, and students may take a placement assessment to determine their starting level when they begin using Sonday products. In addition, students complete a Mastery Check after every 3rd level to provide ongoing data collection in both reading and spelling.

 Tip

Review the Scope & Sequence documentation for SS1 and SS2 to see which topics are covered at each level. 

Timing is central to the lessons in Sonday Systems. The lesson plan for each level is a very structured 35-minute plan with the same 6 lesson components in each level. It's important to use a timer and not devote more time to any component than what is allotted in the plan. Instead, the entire lesson can be repeated over and over. In fact, there are strict thresholds for mastery that must be met before moving on to the next level. The content in some levels may take weeks or even months for students to master. The routine and familiarity of the lesson plan lets students know exactly what to expect and minimizes the time you need to spend preparing for class.

Another key tenet of the Sonday philosophy is error correction. It is done in a very matter-of-fact way that doesn't single students out for their mistakes. In fact, students learn to identify and correct their own errors. This approach has been shown to improve student confidence when reading.

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