I picked up Phonics Pathway because Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer recommended it in the first edition of The Well-Trained Mind. When I mentioned to a friend that I had bought this book, she wrinkled her nose and said, “Let me know what you think,” implying, of course, that I probably wouldn’t think much of it. Nothing could be further from the truth. I love Phonics Pathways.
This is one of those nifty little resources that has actually worked for all of my kids that I've tried it with (I bought our copy when our now ten-year-old was three or four).
Can you believe there is another reading program that promises proficiency? Well, Right Track Reading Lessons, by Miscese R. Gagen looks pretty good as an option. At $25.00 a book, it’s not necessarily a cheap option, but I like the way Ms. Gagen keeps it simple. It’s all text with no colored pictures or glitzy-ness – what you see is what you get. She recommends home-made or inexpensive manipulatives to teach the sounds – the 44 smallest unit sounds that must be mastered for reading proficiency.
Just as this book is much more difficult to use thanTeach Your Child To Read In 100 Easy Lessons, it is also more difficult to review. A companion book by Wanda Sanseri, Teaching Reading At Home, organizes the information into a one page flow chart, then expands each item in the flow chart systematically so you feel comfortable with what to teach when.
The 100 EL is a direct instruction program. This means that the teacher's dialogue is scripted. The sessions are designed to take 20 minutes per day. We found them to take 15 to 30 minutes a day. If it takes any longer, I recommend to stop using the program for a few weeks to let things "jell" then go back to it. I did this periodically with both children and they did not forget any of the previous material when we went back to it.
Sound Beginnings is a reading, spelling, handwriting, phonics and listening program. We have been using it for many months and it's amazing how much our Kyle has learned. It is an intensive program and it works. No color pictures or flashy pages. The program includes step-by-step dialogue and well organized daily lesson plans. There is a 2000 word spelling list with spelling markings and Catholic vocabulary.
This volume begins with Unit three. It reviews the Alphabet sound list. Then it covers the following letters: N (including a N/M discrimination), W, C, R, P, Q, V, X, Y, Z. The lessons are the same setup as in Volume 1 (as explained above for the letter "S").
Unit one has twenty five lessons. The first eleven are Listening skills (stories and poems), Visual Discrimination (broad similarities, detailed similarities and detailed differences), and Motor Skills (straight and curved lines, detailed dashed, detailed straight, and slanted lines and geometric shapes).
The next nine lessons are on auditory/visual discrimination. There are then three lessons on visual discrimination involving capital and lower case letters, letter identification and tracing. Then there is a another motor skills lesson and one on nursery Rhymes.