Fun Phonics Kit I

Written words represent their sounds with a code. Children who have trouble learning to recognize words by looking at them need to learn this code. They need to learn the sounds of the letters and letter pairs—the easy part—and how to sequence and blend these sounds into words or “map” the sounds—the hard part.

The Fun Phonics Word Lists organize words in groups that help children recognize this code. The Teacher's Manual offers suggestions for teaching children to remember the sounds for the letters, how to blend and sequence them in words, and how to recognize letter groups that signal differing sounds. The game activities reinforce these skills and also help children learn the sight words that do not follow the code.

The Word Lists, and the teaching suggestions in the Teacher's Manual are based on a philosophy of learning each skill one step at a time. This allows children to succeed repeatedly, building their confidence.

Success is built in because :

•  The Word Lists provide extensive practice with many words for the same set of skills

•  The Word Lists exclude words that require skills that have not been taught. For example, children are not asked to read grape because it begins with gr before they have learned to give the long a sound and to sequence and blend sounds in words with silent-e.

•  The Word Lists provide continuous review. Children learn to sound out short a and i words with three sounds, cat and fan and hit and lip; then words with four sounds, camp and swam and list and slip; then four-letter words with word pairs that make only one sound, sack and chip; then words with five sounds or letters, stand and stick. Next words with short u are introduced and presented with the same patterns, then short o and e words.

•  A “What Did I Say?” game teaches critical sequencing and blending skills.

•  Back-up procedures help children unlock words on their own; the teacher need not furnish the word.

•  Charts provide practice giving the sounds and serve as a memory back-up.

•  Games teach blending, silent-e , plural-s and verb-s endings, -ed and -ing endings, and sight words. Flip books practice short vowel words with nasal endings.

•  Activities to solve memory problems are described, for example, hand signals, finding words in stories, marking letters that signal certain sounds .

•  Motivation is high when children succeed each time they try!

For Whom Is Kit I Appropriate?

Fun Phonics Kit I is suitable for beginning readers in Kindergarten or first grade, or for struggling readers who have not mastered the decoding and “sounding-out” skills measured in the subtests I-VII of the Gallistel-Ellis Test of Coding Skills (GE Test).

Overview of the Skills Taught in Kit I

Kit I teaches the sounds for the letters, and how to sequence and blend these sounds to read and write one-syllable words, with particular emphasis on short vowel words. It teaches children to read one-syllable words with short vowels, blends, common digraphs, nasal endings, vowel-R, long-vowel (silent-E) words and vowel teams.