where to start

What age are your students? What are other factors with your class that affect learning?

There are several different series that suggest introducing consonants different ways. After I know the age of your groups, we could talk about what different programs bring.

Generally, whatever the age of the students, if they are unable to blend or segment and have no idea why any letter goes where, I start at the same place, a good-quality traditional phonics Book 1. Older students will complete this review level quite quickly and move on to the next in a month or two, while younger students may spend six months in Book 1, but they all need the basics. I do stress to the older kids that this is review and our goal is to move forward to their grade level, but we will work up to it by stages. This does not insult them; they want to be at grade level but have had too much experience with failure at it so they are afraid at the same time.

The usual progression is initial consonants, final consonants, short vowels, digraphs, long vowels and diphthongs, and special patterns such as tion and old etc. This is not written in stone but goes essentially in order from simplest to most complex, from the first individual letter to large letter groups.
The complete pattern system is taught in Books 1 and 2, and then Books 3 and 4 work on syllables and irregular spellings and other issues.

I also “preview” more advanced skills by reading continuous text with high-frequency words which naturally use all of the patterns mixed; I point out the pattern and model the sounding-out process with my students, and have them model it too, so that as they go along they are somewhat familiar with many of the new steps. Also they realize from the start that reading is rule-based and comprehensible, no guessing games, just that they don’t know all the rules yet (but they will.)

It is vital to do this teaching *orally* since you are teaching about sounds.

My students are in grades K-5 and most have been identified with a mild mental handicap. None are currently taking medication or ADHD. Three of the fifteen speak Spanish in the home. Does that help?

What do you suggest as a good quality phonics book?

Lots of MMR kids learn better by sight words than by phonics. However, ESL MMR is a horse of a different color. I’d try a Lindamood-Bell based approach through the first books of SPIRE. Get the K-level book because it has the connection of sound to symbol. You can make your own letter cards out of cardstock and spend your money on the Teachers manual and a reader to see how it goes. The sounds book is Kindergarten and Reader One is the other one that you’ll need quickly. (Don’t rush EMH kids to fast…baby steps.) I’ve had EMH kids make huge progress with SPIRE as long as they’re not pushed to keep up with LD or ESL-only students. SPIRE does have an irregular and high-frequency sight word vocabulary built in.

I’d do lots of word building (tiles for you LmB folks). I made my own word-building kits:

Buy cheap metal cookie sheets with lip around edge—1 per student in the largest group. (Usually six is my largest group and I have six cookie sheets) Also needed is lots of magnet tape, about 3 good sized rolls.

Make a matrix (table) on the computer (Word works well or Claris works) with 1” squares and fill the squares with one consonant or vowel in each. Print enough full alphabet sets (2x on the vowels and on l (as in low), s, f, z) onto cardstock. Can make vowels different colors if desired. Can, if desired, also make consonant digraphs: sh, th, ch, wh, ng, but is not required.

Take to a craft store and have mounted and laminated onto the thinnest foamboard possible. Cut out each 1” square with Exacto knife and stick magnets on the back. (Big job, enlist help.)

Line letters up on the top of the cookie sheet and teach students to re-align them before stacking on a shelf for put-away.

I also made a 2” set for me to use in demo on the whiteboard. Kids like to go to the board and demo, too.

I think my cost for teacher’s set and six more was about $20.00, all told. If you order them, they are about $15.00 per set and $20 for teacher’s set.

I personally use “Check and Double Check Phonics” from Scholar’s Choice, available on the web. Levels 1 and 2 contain all of the basics, and Levels 3 and 4 take you to quite a high level. These are complete, varied enough not to be totally boring, clear, and very inexpensive (around $6 US each, a real bargain.)
The only warnings are that they have to be *taught* *out loud* — silent phonics is a contradiction in terms; and in general, do *all* the exercises; the books are designed to be cumulative and skipping around will lose the benefit of the program.

Buy Reading Reflex (Phono-Graphix) and then email me, it is under $15. I use a lot of other programs after PG and I will share them with you. I have had success with remediating older kids to decode and comprehend at or above grade level in a class in less then 3 months. I would have emailed you directly but you didn’t put in your email address.

Shay,

I just had to tell you that I had an email from a mom the other day who took her son to a PG intensive this summer at my suggestion. He was reading at second grade level before he went. When he returned to school this fall, he was decoding on grade level…seventh grade!!!

Las,

I think Shay’s advice to you is good. You would do very well to get Reading Reflex and then try to go to training when possible. I know there are other good programs and phonics books, but PG is pretty comprehensive and leads you through what to teach. You would eventually want to buy Word Work, which is the classroom version and has reproducible sheets ($175, less if you take the training). I went to the one day training and it was helpful, but the 5 day training might be better if you could swing it.

Janis