Phonics Programs “Behind” Sight Word Programs

                                   “Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons”                                                                                                                                                                                              “Bob Books”

TIMEFRAME. My son was ready, but the “watch, then do” perfectionism was interfering.

MEANINGFUL. I knew he had to be READING quickly.

NOT DUMBED DOWN. I skipped any of the stuff he would think was “stupid”. This is a problem with Bob Books for some creative learners.

SUCCESS-BASED. The visual cues involved in this system I think plays on the visual style needs of the right-brainer in that it took away ALL exceptions, so there was no “making mistakes”, which they hate.

INDIVIDUALIZED. I didn’t MAKE him do it the way the system had it laid out . . . i.e., always have finger under the word and sound out each, and then the second time, say it fast, etc. He could read it any way it worked for him, fast, sounded out, whole word, etc. The Bob Books are set up to let it work for you whatever way you like. I didn’t use any parent tip instructions.

PICTORIAL. I let him look at the pictures for the story and I did not make him read that story over and over again. Bob Books have pictorials with their mini phonics lesson, and the story corresponds literally with the words.

“HARD” BIG WORDS BEFORE “EASY” LITTLE WORDS. I think it clearly showed him that there were some words (particularly those Dolch words) that just had to be memorized and not only made no phonetic sense, but no visual sense, either. Words like “the,” “of,” “has,” etc.

VISUAL CONTEXT. The system creates stories with visuals right away and it put any words learned in the context of a picture. In this way, since the system is about creating stories, they started off with a bunch of easy-to-visualize words because it would be important for the story. Interspersed were the necessary “filler words” that were difficult to visualize, so these were brought up all in context.

WHOLE TO PART. They fade the visual phonetic cues after sufficient time has passed that our creative learners would have the words visualized and part of their sight word repertoire, and enough knowledge was gained that it appeared that my son wasn’t using the information phonetically, but as a way to look at large chunks of words and know as a whole how it would be pronounced, particularly when in context of a story. So, it didn’t have to end in a part to whole way, but literally, he used the system to create a whole to part knowledge of learning to read.

SELF TEACHING. Once you get the rhythm of the “lessons,” my creative learners were able to use the manual without my help, if desired. The Bob Books were used by one of my children independently, who became a reader afterward.