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How the ABC-123 READ's

Reading Program Developed

From the jungles of

Papua New Guinea to

Shreveport, Louisiana

and now to the world.

The ABC-123 READ's free phonics reading program has two important characteristics that many of the other excellent reading programs available do not have. One, it is simple and easy to use and two, it is cheap. There are free phonics worksheets, free phonics lesson plans, and much more.

At the time we were missionaries living in the jungles of Papua New Guinea, I had four young boys to be both Mom and teacher to and my part-time duties involved being the sole staff for a small village medical clinic. For some reason my background in biology landed me the last position by default. Needless to say, I had very little time or money to invest in curriculum. When I began home schooling my oldest son, Jack, I first used Samuel Blumenfeld's Alpha Phonics. Alpha Phonics is an excellent condensed phonics program but it was boring and tedious for Jack. It is all black and white text with no pictures. However the layout of the program is clearly designed and some of the ideas, like reviewing words in family/pattern tables I wanted to keep. You will see these in my instruction pages for each lesson. Alpha Phonics would be better for an older student or adult who has a longer attention span. I still have my original copy of Alpha Phonics - I just can't bear parting with it. If you use it, take it to one of the office supply stores and have them put a comb binding on it. It will hold up better that way.

Looking for something more suitable for Jack, I found a kindergarten phonics program from a commercial textbook supplier (sorry, I don't remember the name). It was very colorful and had a large booklet for each week that focused on one letter/sound. It was laid out so that Jack's knowledge of letters and sounds built up week by week. He was able to read the simple stories in the workbooks because they had controlled vocabulary. These gave him a feeling of accomplishment and were entertaining as well. The subsequent worksheets and stories used only the previously learned letters and sounds, so reviewing was constant each week. This program was very easy to use and Jack enjoyed it. However, it was expensive and consumable so if I was going to use it for my next son I would have had to purchase it again. Also, it only covered very basic phonics; teaching only one sound for each letter in the alphabet. In the Learn 2 Read Program, I use the idea of starting with just a few letters and their sounds and adding two letters for each lesson. I have also included stories with controlled vocabulary.

Other programs I tried were basically good but they just didn't work for me. For example; Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons (Siegfried Engelmann, Phyllis Haddox, and Elaine Bruner) is good if your child picks up on concepts quickly. The lessons are short and move at a very fast pace, too fast for my boys.

With number two son, Andrew, I went back to Blumenfeld's Alpha Phonics even if it was tedious and boring because it is a good, solid phonics program. However, Andrew required much more daily practice, drill and review than what was available in the book. I then purchased Wanda Sanseri's phonogram cards and used them together. Each phonogram had its own card and it was very useful as a review system. However, they are a bit dull with no color or pictures. I kept the idea of the card system for review as you will also see in the Learn 2 Read, Read 2 Succeed reading program.

Saxon had not published their phonics reading program yet, if they had, we probably would have used it. We used their math and were very happy with it. Sing, Spell, Read and Write looked very good but was out of our price range. I had heard mixed reviews about Hooked on Phonics so we steered away from that one.

I discovered the Explode the Code Workbooks with my third son, Martyn. These are really good and aren't too expensive. There are plenty of practice sheets and you can purchase an extra book for each level for more practice. The activity pages were interesting and they kept Martyn's attention. However, they had their own system for introducing the letters and sounds and unless you followed their layout, you couldn't use the workbooks unless your student had mastered all the sound-letter combinations in the previous book(s). They didn't have anything in the beginning to provide instructions in reading, they were just all worksheet-based activity pages. So, I kept the idea of the worksheets when I started putting the Learn 2 Read program together.

Since I wasn't happy with the Explode the Code Workbooks for a stand alone phonics program I began researching again. During this time I came across Reading Reflex by the McGuiness'. This is another excellent program but the book is mostly about the program and how to use it without any type of practice sheets for kids. Read America has their own reading program called Phono-Graphix which of all the programs I had looked at appealed to me the most. The book Reading Reflex describes how the program works. Their research and successes are very impressive, especially for tutoring upper elementary and up. It was designed to be a program used by tutors who met with students once a week, however they now have home versions. I highly recommend it for a tutoring based reading program. It is a little pricey but if you are serious about tutoring for profit it is ideal. The original program was not suitable for kindergarteners or first graders because they introduced the letters too quickly. They have added more worksheets which would probably make it more useable for the younger elementary crowd. Many of the free phonics worksheets in the ABC-123 READ's Program are similar to the ones I developed to be used with Phono-Graphix when I tutored lower elementary students. I was able to slow the pace down this way for my young readers.

So, that's basically how the ABC-123 READ's free reading program, developed - through trial and error, using what worked and throwing out what didn't. There are not any of the bells and whistles of some phonics programs so it can be used without much expense. I would appreciate your feedback if you try it out.

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I recommend ABC-123 READ to anyone with a child having problems in school. I have a nine year old who was having problems in reading and spelling. His grades improved [almost] immediately. He went from a "C" in reading to a "B", and he went from a "D" in spelling to an "A". He also enjoys reading now. He has been on the Honor Roll every report card since we started the program that ABC-123 READ offers. I recommend this program highly.

Tina E. Shreveport, LA
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