Stevenson Language Skills Program

I personally do not like the program. It was used in school with my son who I am now partially homeschooling. I understand it is good with kids who are very visual because it uses mnememics (sp??) to reinforce patterns. It starts with long vowels and doesn’t introduce short ones until after the first year. This means your child won’t be able to read standard texts—just specially designed ones. It also uses a lot of nonsense sentences—which irritated my very concrete science type kid. It has kids looking at the middle of the word instead of the beginning. I could go on and on…. Let’s put it this way—this program is the prime reason why I have pulled my child out of school.

I would recommend phono-graphix instead. The parent book Reading Reflex is only about $16 at a book store. This is how my child is learning to read. It works for most kids.

I would also recommend Phono-Graphix over Stevenson, especially for homeschooling. The Reading Reflex book is excellent, and would be all you would need to get started.

Mary

Lots of people here speak very highly of Reading Reflex and Phonographix. It does seem to be an excellent phonics program, and certainly a good phonics program is worth using.

However I don’t see people recommending actual books for beginners to read. This worries me. Yes, you need phonics skills, absolutely, no argument; but you also need something to use those skills on and for.

I sometimes think this may be the cause of the reports you hear of kids failing to learn in a phonics program — maybe they are tired of exercises and tests and they aren’t interested in reading because they’ve never had anything interesting to read. The fluency problems we see reported may tie in here too; you don’t get fluent by reading individual words or sentences out of context.

I’ve found particular low-vocabulary high-frequency books that I like, and I strongly recommend using a variety of texts which may often be found in used book stores, school closets, library sales, etc. Let’s not forget that you get good at reading by reading, and that reading interesting or informative connected text is the goal, so the more you can do of that the better.

One of the basic tenets of PG is that children need to learn decoding skills in context — that is, they need to be started reading text as soon as possible, applying and using their new code knowledge with real books. So, your point is well taken.

Mary

Thank you for the support and agreement.

I have been researching resources on the web — books, programs, materials, tutors, etc. — and will be glad to share them with anyone interested. I’m hoping to get my act tiogether and post a reference synopsis soon, but meanwhile just ask.

Victoria,

I think one of the reasons my son’s reading has been so slow to progress was that we didn’t do enough actual reading. This was a chicken-egg problem. He didn’t read because he couldn’t read. I think we have passed over that hump now—he is reading Nate the Great books—but there is a real gap in the easily available reading material. I do think someone should republish some of the older readers—they were the only things other than Dr. Seuss he could read until the last month.

Beth

I honestly do not work for this company (If I did, I’d be a lot richer by now) and in fact I pay them a lot for their books.

I have to recommend once again the Ladybird Key Words readers. These were hard to get for a while but now have been reprinted by Penguin (hurray!); you can get all the readers 1a to 6a and 1b to 6b (the foundation program), some new Activity Books which I haven’t seen, and some of the older workbooks online through Penguin - Ladybird now.

Book 1a starts with a grand total of *seventeen* words of vocabulary. This is a level you can teach to just about any kid, and look — he’s read a book! Then 1b uses the *same* seventeen words, and look! he’s read another book, independently!

If a kid can read Dr. Seuss, he can do the first four or five Ladybird levels — in other words, he could have read eight or ten little books as well as his Dr. Seuss.
Not only that, but they are designed around high-frequency vocabulary (the Key Words) so he can then transfer to any decently written First Reader.

Your son is past this plateau of difficulty now, but I have to keep trying to tell other people about this very easy and practical way to lead kids into the world of books.

Much as I love these Ladybird Key Words books, I do have to add that they are zero on phonics — blend them with any good phonics program, however, and you have a real winner.

Beth-

I could not agree with you more. My son’s teacher has a collection of old readers and these readers and my son’s vision therapy have made all the difference in the world.

I have been getting old readers at thrift stores and second hand book stores for my son to use and he is now starting his first chapter books.

D.D.

One series I have stumbled onto is called Basic Vocabulary Series. They were written in the 1950’s. They mainly use Basic Sight Word list of 220 words. I would say they are late first grade/early second grade level. We have Animal Stories and Dog Stories and my son can read almost every word. I think it is helping with fluency plus it has full pages of text (much to his chagrin) which is helping with endurance.

My son can read some easy chapter books. I like these better because they keep using the same words over and over again (not necessarily in same story) yet they have a plot. (I use all sorts of things for variety though.) They also are not babyish. One of my older readers he hated because is was about Teddy, at least in the beginning, who looked like he was 4.

Here’s the names of the books listed in this series, for your information.

Folk Stories, Animal Stories, “Why” stories, Pueblo Stories, Tepee Stories, Wigwam Stories, Dog Stories, Elephant Stories, Circus Stories Edward Dolch and Marguerite Dolch are authors.

Dear Beth-

Do you know how I can get information on the Basic Vocabulary Series you talked about? I am getting ready for next year and planning for learning meterials.

Thank you for your time.