Phonics Readers
My boy couldn’t grasp the sounds that letters made – since letters kept flipping and turning when he looked at them, and he couldn’t bear to be constantly corrected. He needed a way to teach himself… My ideas began with these “picture letters” – which put the sounds (via a photograph) right into the letter for my young reader to consult – taking away his frustration of not remembering/recognizing each letter. The same letters delighted his visual (strong-willed) sister, entertained his story-loving brother, and made reading accessible to the youngest brother (who refused to wait until he was 3 to start his learning). Following shortly on the heels of my picture letter idea, I began to personalize the rules of phonics into stories about the letters (particularly the vowels) – stories of how they behaved and interacted with one another. It was modeled on how our family works together – each having our own individual jobs, but being always willing to help one another do special jobs (often sacrificing our own time and energies to make the other successful). Humorous stories are much easier to remember than facts, and giving the letters personality traits makes them real characters in the minds of my children – especially my random middle son and my strong-willed daughter!
I was trained as a remedial reading teacher, but no one ever mentioned phonics in my training – what an oversight! In the process of teaching my own children, I have discovered connections and relationships between the letters that make so much sense – ones I’ve never seen anyone else explain. It turns out that the basis of our language isn’t nearly as complicated or disorganized as I’d always assumed!
If you are tired of teaching phonics as a list of dry rules to less-than-contented students, I hope this book will be a blessing to you and yours! These books work with pre-readers, struggling readers, and ESL readers of every age. There is nothing to suggest that this book is only for children, since many teens and adults are also searching for a way to teach themselves how to read. These books work very well with the Explode the Code series (phonic workbooks for early readers) and the Sequential Spelling or All About Spelling series (though I advise delaying the teaching spelling until reading is well established).
Since every student is unique, and what works with one will not work with another, I give a 30-day money-back guarantee with each subscription. Try it – and if your student isn’t thriving by the end, ask for a refund.
Copyright Information: You are free to print pages and use your log-in on multiple devices, but please limit full access to members of your immediate family (as you would with a single copy of a physical book). Feel free to tantalize others with samples, though, and send them to me!
