Grades K-2

Ready for Reading! A Learn-to-Read Series, Set 1 (Ant Books)

Book cover: 'Ready for Reading! A Learn-to-Read Series, Set 1'
Author(s): 
Laura Callahan Busch
This beginning reader set provides young students with small activity booklet/readers that can be read at a very primary level. The author combines simple words that can be read phonetically with one or two sight words in each booklet that the child will learn to recognize (words like: "look", "go" and "the"). I thought the illustrations were more appealing than those found in the Bob Books.

Teach Me Spanish

Book cover: 'Teach Me Spanish'
This audio tape and coloring book set (also available in CD) is designed as a very early introduction to Spanish for young children through popular and traditional songs in Spanish and English. Material covered includes counting to ten, learning the days of the week and the words of songs such as Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes and Are You Sleeping?

My children have enjoyed this tape quite a bit over the past several years and the songs are performed nicely enough to not be too tiresome for Moms either. :)

Little Angel Readers

Book cover: 'Little Angel Readers'
Author(s): 
Linda Bromeier
The Little Angels Series are four soft cover readers that teach all phonics sounds using word drill pages and phonetic stories. It teaches letter-sound relationships systematically, beginning with the easiest letter sounds. The word drill pages provide practice in decoding words containing the letter sounds. The stories with phonetically-controlled vocabulary follow each word drill page. They provide practice in decoding words in context and build comprehension skills. The stories are about Catholic family life, Bible stories, and Saint stories as well as fables and folk tales.

Kindergarten Phonics for Young Catholics

Book cover: 'Kindergarten Phonics for Young Catholics'
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.

A Book of Sanctity

Book cover: 'A Book of Sanctity'
A Book of Sanctity is a newly printed collection of stories gathered from numerous out-of-print Catholic reading books. These 27 selections center around the theme of sanctity and include Bible stories, stories of the saints, and stories of families. Most pages include a simple black-and-white illustration that enhances the interest of the story without distracting a young reader's attention.

Bob Books Pals!

Book cover: 'Bob Books Pals!'
Author(s): 
Bobby Lynn Maslen
Illustrator(s): 
John Maslen
John R Maslen
Formerly titled More Bob Books
This series provides practice lots of with two-letter consonant blends (such as "nt", "nd" and "dr"). Book six introduces words with long vowels ending with a silent "e". The books increase in number of pages and number of text lines on each page quite a bit as this particular set progresses. While using this series with my daughter, we started running through the phonogram cards (from The Writing Road to Reading) each day. I introduced (and explained) spelling rules as they came up in the stories from this set.

Sound Beginnings

Author(s): 
Julia Fogassy
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.

Teach Your Child to Read In 100 Easy Lessons

Book cover: 'Teach Your Child to Read In 100 Easy Lessons'
Author(s): 
Siegfried Engelmann
Phyllis Haddox
Elaine Bruner

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.

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