I ordered the teacher’s manual and one student workbook. They arrived several days ago and I have been studying the materials.
There are some thing I like about the program:
1. Brief Number of Lessons for situations where one doesn’t have 3+ years to use Wilson Language A to Z—high school for example.
2. Designed for students reading grade 3-4 who need work vowel patterns such a r-controlled and vowel teams along with multi-syllable words. Doesn’t seem to discuss special education needs in the teacher’s dialogue.
3. Demonstrates some good strategies for multisyllable words: underlining vowels, circling affixes. Then examining the baseword/root word for decoding purposes.
4. Does some meaning work with affixes.
5. Teaches student to look for affixes instead of “words” embedded within bigger words.
6. Has both word reading and sentence reading in beginning. At about lesson 13 or so, passages are included.
7. Very cost effective. $6.00 for each student book for whole program. (Wilson is about $100.00 for all the student workbooks.) Teacher’s manual is a budget-priced $50.00 or so.
8. A repeated reading fluency piece is built into the program.
Now, here are some pretty serious concerns:
1. The phonics is incomplete for vowel teams (i.e. no ey major and minor sounds, or no ue. Also, no minor sound for ou, just the sound as in round. Need the “ou” as in soup—my opinion.) Does, however, give major and minor sounds for “ea”, “ow”, and “oo”. No discussion of “ie” or “ei” either. This means that teacher must be on their toes and supplement when needed. This analysis is not complete—not enough time to study it all. This is just what I’ve noticed.
2. Instructions don’t require teachers to use questioning techniques—just tell the word if student cannot get it after circling affixes and examining base/root word. (Of course, I like the Lindamood error handling on this one…)
3. Incomplete on teaching syllabication. Students need to be taught flexibility on breaking the base word into syllables, too. Program jumps very quickly without really explaining even the concept of open/closed syllable types.
4. Wall charts are too full of small words—too visually busy and distracting. (However, a nice alphabetical list for notebook size work.)
5. This one is very disturbing to me: Begins without hooking to any kind of prior knowledge and gives no categories into which students may mentally file new information. Just sort of inexplicitly demonstrates open/closed vowels a and i along with ay, ai, and au. Introduction is incomplete, in my opinion.
6. Silent e is handled like a vowel combination. Not really demonstrated as a visual pattern.
7. Sequence is haphazard as opposed to having a specific order (e.g., r controls are mixed with vowel teams that are mixed with short vowel sounds.) Difficult for students to recognize patterns—and for teachers to teach patterns to mastery.
8. Upper level sounds such as “ti” (/sh/ as in -tion) and “tu” (/ch/ as in -ture) are not specifically addressed—just laid in there randomly.
9. The whole notion of i=/ee/ before suffixes like “ous” are not explicitly taught.
That’s all I have for now, however, I’d love to return the teacher’s manual because my concerns overshadow the benefits. Unfortunately, I spilled coffee on the edge of the teacher’s manual. Maybe I’ll get some use of it.
P.S.
Oh, the program deliberately does not deal with syllables ala O-G. Again, if you do and have, then by all means, continue to do so. My students have been taught the syllable types, so I would build on the foundation my students come to this point with.
This program simply approaches open/closed syllables by teaching the student to try the short then the long sound. They call it the sound and the name.
Re: P.S.
I am using Rewards right now with my 8th graders. I think the program assumes that students have basic phonics knowledge. I would not use this with kids who are not able to decode words with the basic code. I think the vowel study is really meant to be a review of hopefully, known information. I like the way it teaches syllables. It doesn’t confuse the issue with a lot of rules. The students are taught some basic chunks to look out for. My students are able after the first 10 lessons to sound out any word that they are presented with in the program. They catch on very quickly to the process of seeing the chunks and saying them and then saying it fast. I think the program is really good for kids who have a well developed oral vocabulary but are deficient in decoding of large 5 -7 syllable words. I am seeing some very impressive results. We will begin the sentence and passage reading very soon. I think it is important to do partner reading of the chunks and the words. I then call on students to read a line of words. Make sure you move right along or the kids get bored. I keep a fast pace and we move right through the lesson. I think I will break it into two days once I start the passage reading.
Nan
Since I never use programs as “programs” as laid out in the teacher’s manuals, I don’t have a problem with many of the concerns you shared. I like the material and the organization and will use this as a resource. The program is recommended for students reading at third grade level, so the basic patterns should have been well-covered. I have no problem with taking any program and adding what I believe should be added, where I believe it needs to be added. That is why I have been educated. The program is what I use to teach the child, published materials are just tools for me. This one has pieces I was looking for and fills some of my needs.
I like the word lists and many of the activities. I did not have anything that was this well put together and was pulling this aspect of instruction together myself by pulling words from one source and another. So, this makes my life easier. I can follow the program loosely, supplement etc.
I do not plan to use the charts, either.
This particular area, specifically and systematically teaching the decoding of multisyllabic words is weak in many programs. I find this a good starting point for myself. For the teacher who has a better plan or approach already, that is also great. Sorry you wasted your money.