A system and method for teaching sound/symbol correspondences in alphabetically represented languages including selecting an alphabetic character string, choosing a tangible representation for a sound that the alphabetic character string is used to represent, and associating the tangible representation with the alphabetic character string based on the probability that the alphabetic character string is used in a written word to represent the sound represented by the tangible representation. In one embodiment, a sound is first selected, and an alphabetic character string is chosen that represents the sound. The alphabetic character string is associated with the sound based on the probability that the alphabetic character string is used in a word to represent the sound.