Lively Letters

I don’t have experience with it. After looking online at descriptions, though, it doesn’t seem to be a reading program per se. Rather, it is a program that introduces letters to kindergartners. Since it teaches that “letters make sounds” and does not make any mention of reading subskills such as oral segmenting and blending, I have to conclude that it is just another one of those cute gimmicky programs that masquerades as a teaching curriculum.

If you wonder why I am so down on this kind of thing, read the first three chapters of “Reading Reflex” by McGuiness. Now THAT is a program that teaches reading!

At the kindergarten level, though, I would be using activities that develop phonemic awareness. There are several excellent 5-start books on Amazon with worthwhile activities (run a search on “phonemic awareness” to find them). Sound bingo (from “Reading Reflex”) would also be appropriate.

Nancy

Excuse me, I meant to say five-STAR books, not five-start books!

Nancy

You might look for the book “Phonemic Awareness: Playing with Sounds to Strenghten Beginning Reading Skills” by Jo Fitzpatrick. Nice book. Some of the activites are meant for a classroom but many are not. Very reasonable on Amazon (actually you could get both Reading Reflex and the Phonemic awareness book for about $25-30 including shipping.

All the activities in the Phonemic Awareness book are in the form of games and it gives you background info as to why phonemic awareness is so important. I think the intro of alphabet letter, singing the alphabet song, etc. is way way overdone.

—des

There’s nothing wrong with fun activities to learn letters — lots of kids really benefit from such “frills” and at the K level you’re not playing catch-up so there’s time for it. I wouldn’t confuse it for a complete program, though (but I wouldn’t confuse Reading Reflex for one, either :))