Build Strong Foundations for Literacy Success

Sound Base Education's mission is to empower educators and learners in classrooms, intervention and specialist settings, and homes through practical, evidence-based literacy resources that build strong foundations for reading, spelling and writing. Through engaging, hands-on learning tools, we support explicit literacy instruction, reduce educator preparation time, and help every learner develop the essential skills needed for lifelong literacy success.

THE PROBLEM

Structured Literacy Works. Educators Need Practical Resources to Deliver It.

Educators understand the importance of explicit, systematic phonics instruction in the first years of school, but delivering it consistently every day can be challenging in busy classrooms and learning spaces.

Too often, literacy resources are fragmented, time-consuming to prepare, or don't reflect the realities of everyday teaching. Educators need practical tools that are organised, durable, easy to store, and ready to use—without unnecessary preparation, or piecing together multiple resources.

THE SOLUTION

Resources That Support Effective Literacy Instruction

Sound Base Education provides practical, teacher-designed literacy resources that support effective early literacy instruction across whole-class teaching, small-group learning and targeted intervention.

Our carefully selected literacy resources strengthen explicit instruction. Vowel Valley's Magnetic Word Building Kits provide engaging, one-to-one, hands-on learning experiences that support phonics instruction - word building, decoding, encoding, handwriting, spelling, and sentence construction in a clear, organised and practical way.

The result is less preparation time for educators and more meaningful learning and practice opportunities for students.

THE PRODUCT

Magnetic Word Building Kits

Sound Base Education is the authorised distributor of Vowel Valley's Magnetic Word Building Kits throughout Australia and New Zealand.

Developed by Vowel Valley founder and educator Shantelle Oliphant in the United States, these practical, evidence-aligned resources have been adapted to support Australian and New Zealand classrooms, specialist settings and intervention environments.

Designed for whole-class phonics teaching, small-group instruction and targeted intervention, the kits provide engaging, hands-on opportunities for students to connect speech sounds with written graphemes while developing segmenting and blending skills, word building, decoding, encoding, handwriting, spelling, and writing skills. Each kit also offers flexibility for teaching early morphological connections.

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THE FOUNDER

Meet Cathy Gleeson

Sound Base Education was founded by Cathy Gleeson, a primary teacher with over 31 years of experience across early, middle, and upper primary classrooms. Cathy has held roles as a Literacy Leader and Learning Specialist, with a strong focus on structured literacy, evidence-based teaching practices, and reading intervention.

Over the past nine years, her work has centred on the science of reading and learning, supported by extensive professional development including the completion of LETRS (Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling), Orton-Gillingham training, and the intensive Teaching Students with Dyslexia Tier 3 Intervention course. This professional pathway reflects a deep commitment to improving literacy outcomes for all students.

Sound Base Education was established to provide practical, classroom-ready resources that support explicit phonics instruction and reduce educator workload in real education settings.

Why Choose Sound Base Education?

Practical, teacher-designed resources that support structured literacy instruction in real classrooms.

Teacher-designed and evidence-aligned

Kits for learning created and adapted by experienced educators to support explicit phonics instruction, including phoneme–grapheme mapping, decoding, encoding, handwriting, structured word building and early morphological connections.

Ready to use in real classrooms

No printing. No cutting. No laminating. No Velcro. No preparation required. Simply open the folder, add the magnetic tiles, and begin teaching. Vowel Valley Magnetic Word Building Kits save valuable preparation time and help educators deliver consistent, targeted phonics instruction.

Built for every tier of instruction

Designed for whole-class teaching, small groups, targeted intervention, specialist education settings, tutoring, and home learning. Flexible across different learning spaces. Each Magnetic Word Building Kits supports practical, hands-on instruction for building core early literacy skills.