When my son Ammon was a very bright, wiggly and energetic 5-year-old, he couldn't seem to get interested in workbooks or sit still for lessons. The only way I could get his attention long enough to teach him to read was to play games with him. Over the years, these games have evolved into an easy, happy way to teach children to read, from the very first step (learning the ABC song) through advanced phonics and spelling.
Simple, yet entertaining and educational, these phonics games are printed on colorful, sturdy cardstock ready to cut out. Included is a mother-friendly guidebook which contains the details on how I teach phonics and reading, how to pronounce and teach the phonics sounds, how to make your own simple beginning readers, and step-by-step teaching info for each phonics sound.
Happy Phonics covers beginning to advanced phonics and is the sum total of my experience. My children enjoy the games and never really realize that they are drilling phonics sounds! Enjoy learning games, little books, and activities as well as a 76-page beginning reader, My Big Book. Use with the Explode the Code Primers for a complete manuscript handwriting and phonics course.
I think you will be very pleased with the pain-free, rapid reading results! I guarantee you will love it and your child will learn to read, or I'll send your money right back—happily!
I am excited and surprised to report that Happy Phonics was selected for the prestigious "Cathy Duffy's Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum" award!
Hear what others say: Games! What a brilliant way to teach a child to read. My kids absolutely love and beg for "phonics time" at our house!
—Regina
"My daughter was a little annoyed when I got out the Muffin Match game since she says she "already knows the letters", but after a few different activities, any time I tell her it is time to work on phonics, she excitedly yells "Let's do the Muffin Match game!" Thanks for helping make homeschool so fun!"
—C.D.
"I just wanted to tell you how much we are all enjoying our new Happy Phonics program! My 4-year-old walks around singing "happy phonics, happy phonics," my 6-year-old is enjoying the little books and my creative 8-year-old is starting to read! Hallelujah! I am just loving to teach them and they are truly loving to learn. I love everything that we bought! I am so thankful for you providing these products!"
—Christina
Includes Happy Phonics, and Explode the Code Primers (Get Ready for the Code Primer A, Get Set for the Code Primer B, Go for the Code Primer C) and Instructors Guide for Primers A, B, C.
Here is my favorite resource for teaching your young child the sounds the letters make, and how to write them! Begin with 3 primer workbooks that open horizontally to a clean, bright format with simple line drawings done by children. This set of Explode the Code Primers (A, B, C) teaches all the consonant letters thoroughly with a whopping 12 pages of fun activities for each letter. The most fun is the riddle page. Mom reads the riddles (found in the Teacher's Manual, or create your own) while the child follows instructions carefully. For example, after learning the letter "f" (how to write it, its sound, and its capital letter) the first riddle says: "I am thinking of something that is often made of wood. It keeps animals in a yard or field. What is it?" Now the child looks at all the drawings on his page and finds the fence. "What sound does fence begin with? ("ffff"). Color the fence green." Each object that the child finds to answer the riddle has a different direction with it, such as put an X on it, or color it red and yellow, etc.
Move on to more challenges: Book 1 teaches short vowel sounds Book 2 teaches consonant blends Book 3 teaches the phonic units sh, th, wh, ch, ng, ck, tch, ee, ea, ai, ay, oa, and ow. Book 4 covers compound words, suffixes, syllable division rules, and 3-syllable words. Book 5 teaches the sound families: all, alk, old, olt, oll, ild, ind, thr, shr, scr, str, spr, spl, qu, -ey words, and the sounds of ed. Book 6 contains ar, or, er, ir, ur, wor, war, ea, ie, igh, oo, oi, oy, ou, ow, au, aw, ew, ui, ue, ou. Book 7 covers soft c and g, silent letters, ear, ph, ei, eigh. Book 8 teaches suffixes and endings.
If you feel your child needs a little more practice at a certain level, each level has a "1/2" book: 1 1/2, 2 1/2, etc. that provides more practice on the same concepts as the book before it So, if your child finishes Book 2 and isn't really confident with the concepts, let him do Book 2 1/2 and he'll be ready for Book 3.
I would recommend moving forward just as quickly as your child can handle it. (It never hurts to tape a dollar bill inside the cover as a motivation!) As soon as your child has gone through the primer books, and done a few pages in Book 1, he will be able to read a beginning phonetic book, like Decodable Little Books. Paperback, 78 pages per book. You'll love these!
Learning Language Arts Through Literature: Common Sense Reading Program
This very good learn-to-read program includes professional graphics and slick learning activities: word wheels, stick puppets, flip books, letter dice, worksheets, and more. The Teacher's Manuals are great for both beginning and veteran teachers as all lesson plans are laid out clearly with materials needed listed, questions you are to ask scripted, teacher dialogue and student answers included, and activities described in detail. No preparation is needed—you just read the Teacher's Manual step-by-step as you teach. Skills assessments (tests) help you know what your student needs to work on. This program contains everything you need to teach reading, spelling, grammar, an easy form of italic handwriting, phonics, higher-order thinking skills, and creative writing.
The Blue Book (Beginning Kit) is where you start. The kit says "First Grade," but you can happily teach your child to read using this program whenever he is ready, which is usually about 4 to 5 years old. Contains an easy-to-use Teacher's Manual, 28 illustrated story readers, flashcards, 225-page Student Activity Book, and lots of fun props.
The Red Book continues the program with more advanced story readers, a Teacher's Manual, 380-page Student Activity Book, flashcards, reading progress chart, activities, and more.
This is not your typical phonics program. Instead of the usual teaching of short and long vowels, Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons introduces the Distar alphabet, a variation of our normal alphabet which includes letters in different fonts for such phonic sounds as "sh", long "i", etc.
The book begins with research information on why the method is so effective, then instructions to help the parent teach the lessons. 100 lessons follow, one for each day—taking about 20 minutes each. Red teacher script is included so you know exactly what to say and do. Step-by-step format is simple for Mom to use.
Handwriting instructions come naturally in the lessons and most children will be writing just as quickly as they learn to read in this program. Entertainingly goofy stories with cute illustrations reward your beginning reader for his effort by the 13th day. By the 74th lesson, children are smoothly transitioned from the Distar alphabet into the traditional alphabet. After 100 lessons (that's just 3 months), your child will be reading at a solid 2nd grade level.
The book ends with a children's book list from which you continue to teach your child advanced phonics using their instructions. Paperback book, 395 pages.
An electronic phonics teaching toy that really is worth the money! It has lots of nice features such as volume control (a must!), high-quality digital Texas Instruments voice technology, light-up letters, and auto shut-off so you don't waste your batteries.
Why I favor this unit over others is that it really does teach, rather than just entertain. The first level of play is the singing of the ABC song, with each letter lighting up as it is sung. (This just happens to be the first step of my phonics program, Happy Phonics.) Play advances to being able to learn to name the letters and a quiz with rewarding sounds for choosing the correct letters to the sounds those letters make. Finally, little beginning reader/writers can try out any combination of 3 letters to make words (over 500 of them!).
This is really fun for a young one learning to sound out letters to form words. I appreciate that when attempts at 3-letter combos that don't make an intelligible word are made, the Phonics Firefly responds with "I don't know that word yet," rather than "wrong!" Also, any borderline words (such as bathroom words) are not recognized.
Uses 4 "AA" batteries, which are included. You will find this a fun way to drill phonics facts without flashcards and workbooks. Start it just as soon as your little one is able to recognize a letter and remember it.
I've been researching all the phonics readers on the market, and I gladly recommend this series to you as being the best, the brightest, and the most interesting to kids! Each volume contains 10 little books, each neatly arranged in a slip-in plastic sleeve. Building gradually book-by-book, basic phonics sounds are covered and practiced via a fun-filled silly story.
Little ones always want to "read" a book long before they have the necessary skills (or the patience to learn all those skills). Bob Books have solved that problem.
The first page of each little book teaches just a few consonants (m, s, t) and a short vowel (a), with little picture clues (moon for the sound of m). With 4 sounds under his belt, your eager learner can sound out the simple words that make up the first storybook. Your child can feel the satisfaction of reading a whole little book! Difficulty increases very gradually.
Set A1 contains 12 books, covering all the letters of the alphabet except "Q." Small paperback books are 12 to 16 pages each. Very popular!
A thrilling and important part of teaching phonics is that moment when a child blends the letter sounds to make words! These 20 little books are the very first books a child can read. Each small book features a single short vowel sound (2 books per each vowel) so your little beginning reader develops fluency in sounding out words to read a story! Additional books mix the vowels to give your child lots of practice. I love them because they are pure phonics—the only sight words included are "a" and "the". Cute black and white illustrations. Cut and staple to create 20 books. A bargain!
Give your beginning reader a fun way to practice the sounds of each letter! The Consonants Game contains 4 colorful cardboard game boards, cards, tokens and directions. Each game differs in difficulty and in theme. Draw a card and identify the sound that letter makes to move ahead. Of the 100 picture cards, 2 of them read "Return to Start". For young players, this can be devastating when they have worked their way to the end. I simply change the cards to read "Return to s" (meaning the letter "s") by blacking out the rest of the letters in the word "start" with a marker. This way, a child drawing that card only has to slip back a few spaces to the letter "s". We have enjoyed playing these games and I know that the children are getting phonics practice as they play! For 2 to 4 players, ages 4 and up.
This book does not start with the ABCs. Instead it starts with easy-to-write letters and then proceeds to more difficult letters step by step, regardless of alphabetical order. Different strokes such as straight lines, diagonal lines and curves are introduced in an incremental manner so that children do not grow tired of studying letters. The popularity of this book proves the Kumon Method's "practice makes perfect" effectiveness. Ages 3-5.
This sequel to My First Book of UPPERCASE LETTERS encourages children to begin with lowercase letters that have simple strokes such as l, t, and i and gradually moves on to letters containing diagonal lines and curves. Through a series of connect-the-dots and tracing exercises, children become familiar with the shapes of letters naturally. Ages 4-6.
In this third book in the alphabet sequence, children learn to link uppercase and lowercase letters while working on strengthening their sense of alphabetical order. All of this is done with fun and familiar games used innovatively, like tracing, connect-the-dots, and color-by-letter. Fun! Ages 4-6.
This picture Bible is fun for little ones to carry around and act grown-up. Lovely realistic, pastel chalk drawings are the work of artist Frances Hook. Each little story is one page long and has a full-page illustration and a thought question. One of the stories reads: "God's people were very thirsty, but they didn't have anything to drink. God told Moses to hit the rock with his stick. When he did this, God made water come out of the rock. Then everyone could have a big drink. What happened when Moses hit the rock with his stick?" 125 stories, 6 x 7", hardbound. Very popular.
Home wouldn't be home without letters stuck to the fridge, now would it? 52 brightly colored wooden magnetic upper + lowercase letters come in a handy divided wooden case. Teaches letter recognition, and can be used for tracing too. Great phonics practice, writing those messages up on the fridge!
Large, flexible foam letters are coated with a magnetic backside, making them fun to handle and even more fun to use on any magnetic surface: fridge, bathtub, cookie sheet, etc. Red, green, blue, and yellow 1 1/2" letters and numbers come in storage bucket. Set of 154.
This is one of my favorite activities to do with little ones to help their brains grow! Lay out 3 cards in random order and let your child put them in sequence order and tell the story. Fun and educational! For ages 3 to 6 years.
