Lessons Unit 4, lesson 1
Simple words: cat, sun, top
From here on, real vocabulary — ordered easiest to hardest by the engine itself, using the same analysis that draws your sheets. This first band is words that sound exactly as they look: one beginning, one vowel, one ending.
What do the marks mean?
Want the full walkthrough? Read the map explains every mark, with practice.
Now say it yourself
Read each word from its sheet, out loud, three times. Where there's a play button, listen first and copy what you hear. Slow is fine — speaking clearly matters more than speaking fast. Tap a word's microphone to record yourself and see which sounds landed.
Check your pronunciation, on this device. The first use downloads a small AI listener (about 40 MB, one time, then it's cached). Your voice is analyzed here in your browser — it never leaves your device.
Why start here
Cat, sun, top — these words are the reward for everything you practised sound by sound. One consonant opens, one vowel sits in the middle, one consonant closes. No silent letters, no stress to juggle, no sound teams to untangle. If a single sound in cat or bus still feels shaky, this is the cleanest place to hear it exposed.
What to listen for
Keep each vowel short and pure: the a in map is not the a in day, and the e in wet is not the ee in see. Say the word slowly first, sound by sound — k-a-t — then speed it up until the three sounds fuse into one word. If a word on the list trips you, its sheet points straight back to the one sound responsible, so you always know exactly what to fix rather than just that something felt wrong.
If a word tripped you, its sheet shows exactly which sound did it — go back to that sound's lesson, then return.