Curriculum Review: Adventures in Phonics - Christian Liberty Press

I'm using Adventures in Phonics with my five year old daughter. I originally planned to use it as an occasional supplement. But in the interest of keeping things simple and because my daughter wanted to do a worksheet like she saw her older brother doing in another subject, we started off with a single page. She has enjoyed them so much that Adventures in Phonics has become our mainstay phonics program.

My daughter has taken off simply by doing one side of a worksheet per day. I am very pleased with her reading progress commeasurate to a 20 minute reading lesson per day. I've taught four children to read and this has been a stress-free, no bells and whistles approach.

Adventures in Phonics is best suited for the visual learner who enjoys a workbook program. But it's also do-able for the average wiggly worm who just needs to get through the basics in a simple and short ordered way. (A parent could certainly use this book for phonics, reading and handwriting instruction.) I always mix in shaving cream activities for forming letters and play lots of phonics games along the way. (Bits and pieces of Happy Phonics) The author of the AiP program suggests doing parts of the worksheets orally so as not to frustrate the young student.

Book A begins teaching short vowels first (pages 1-28), then teaches all consonants (pages 29-68). I used these pages to both re-enforce the sounds of the letters but also as handwriting sheets. There are a lot of matching activities and ample opportunity for handwriting practice on a daily basis. (Roughly two lines...one for capital letters and one for lower case)

Beginning with page 69, short vowel words are taught. Oddly, the Adventures in Phonics workbooks do NOT follow the word family approach to blending, but the Christian Liberty Press Readers for kindergarten do. I chose to teach the beginning sound and vowel blend approach rather than the word family approach. It works fine. I'm finding that it matters not in the slightest. I simply have taught my child to sound out words like this:

1. b a t (sound out each letter individually...drawing out the first two letters and then adding the third letter.

2. ba t (blend the two first letters, drawn out...then add the third.)

3. bat (say it fast)

Short vowel words are taught through page 89. Then the child is taught to mark short vowels in preparation for distinguishing them from long vowels. At the same time, consonant blends are added to the mix. On pages 116-154, long vowel words are covered in depth.

Pages 155-212 teach digraphs and remaining phonograms and compound words.

There is quite a bit of material covered here, for a minimal price. All pages are tri-color. (black, white and blue)

I imagine I will be using this particular level into our first grade year. This would be entirely appropriate...and hence maximizes the bang for the buck.

The Adventures in Phonics program has three levels and takes the student through blends, digraphs, and diphthongs as well as prefixes and suffixes, plurals, synonyms, antonyms, homonyms, apostrophe usage, syllables, and pronunciation by book three.

Recommended - Please use with grace and wisdom as the author suggests.

Blessings,

©2008 Y.M.F.