Anyone here used Phyllis Fischer's -- Concept Phonics?

I have not used it — but I have looked over it & talked a bit to Phyllis at conferences and she knows what she’s about. She suggests some very sensible ways of compacting the O-G approach that I think would work with most students and make things happen much faster (getting closed syllables & silent e closer togetehr — learning both can and cane better by comparing them, instead of separately… which seems to contradict the O-G philosophy of separating confusing things. However, in this case, I think it follows the logical way our minds define things by figuring out a definition and then a “non-definition” (per some of those instructional technology grad courses :-)).

Hi Sue,
Thanks for sharing that information. The research of her program looks very good. I ordered the speed drills and some other things from her. She has speed drills based on Concpet Phonics and OG, but I liked the CP syllable comparisons (that’s where my son has his greatest difficulties). I think they’ll be a good combination with Seeing Stars.

Experience over nearly a century (and probably before that) shows that for *first* learning and *first* steps in remediating, “can” and “cane” need to be taught very well separated; ie so-called “short” vowels taught fully for a period of weeks, reviewed, used in practice, and consolidated while at least one other unit is taught, before going on to silent e and so-called “long” vowels. Efforts to speed this up are almost universally counterproductive, leading the student to say one or the other sound randomly; the time needed to ubteach the bad habit and re-teach properly is ten times as long as the time needed to teach it correctly at a moderate pace in the first place (We have exactly the same problem in math; a very large number of my students have been in new “efficient” curricula that teach all operations and all kinds of numbers together, so they just randomly add or multiply or subtract depending on the phase of the moon. It takes years to remediate the effects of this rush-and-fail, if it ever gets remediated.)
A student who reads moderately well and only needs a tune-up can benefit from comparison practice. My favoured phonics program teaches “short” vowels in Book 1 and then in Book 2 does a quick review of “short” vowels, then consonant work on digraphs, then an introduction of silent e, *then* exercises comparing words with and without silent e, then more consonants, then other “long” vowel patterns such as ai and ay. I can *see* the students gaining mastery through this step-by-step systematic approach.

Hi ~ I have all of the Concept Phonics program, yet I tend to use only the speed drills. I have found those to be extremely helpful with students who need an extra boost on fluency and speed. The kids tend to find them monotonous, but do like it when they see their wpm increase. I hae’t used the rest of her program just because it seems a little confusing, although I have to admit I haven’t put the time into understanding it like I should have. We recently bought Wilson, and that’s what we’ll probably end up using (assuming we have the time!)