The spelling-sounds are taught in order of utility, although care was taken to introduce consonants and vowels in a way that allows students to use those spelling-sounds to read whole words as early as possible. For example, the concepts introduced first—s, n, m, t, short a, and particular high-frequency words—are practiced as early as the third book, Nan and Sam. The goals of the instruction are to have the students read and comprehend text and to develop a sense of themselves as readers, even with very basic decoding skills.