As my oldest has recently begun sounding out letters to form words, we are beginning to review a bunch of different early literacy programs and curriculums. To find what works and what are the most interesting reading programs out there!  This is the first in what I hope to be a long (although occasionally sporadic) series on different reading curriculum’s. This first program we discovered through Natalie, of Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns.  She raved about Progressive Phonics.  We got the first e-book, printed it out and I was amazed at how quickly E began to figure out the word family “-at”.  I can see us using this program to supplement our learning

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Words covered: at, bat, cat, fat, hat, mat, pat, rat, sat.

Some of the sentences we read included: “My fat cat sat on a big fat mat,” and,  “Can you look at my cat.”

To help reinforce her learning we used our sticky sticks to trace the letters “at” on a sheet and we’d form the additional letter to make the word we were reviewing.

Other activities we did to help learn the various words in the “at” family:

• wrote our words on the chalkboard, we’d erase the first letter and replace it to form a new word
• we used our phonics flip chart to review different sounds ending in “-at” (even if they were make-believe words)
• we made flashcards with all our “at” words on them and rearranged them into sentences.

A tip:

Kirsten, a friend, gave me some terrific advice.  E was stuck for awhile at the “C-A-T” stage, where she would sound out the letters individually but had a hard time realizing they formed a word.  Rather than sounding out each letter independently, sound them out in blends.  “C-A-T” becomes, “ca”+”at”.  E totally “got it” the after a round of sounding out our words with this new method!

Perks of the Progressive Phonics Program:

• It’s free!  The e-books are available at their site, you do have to sign in, but they are free for you to either use online or to print out and begin reading!
• The books are silly.  My two-year old was giggling hysterically at the descriptions of the cat and the rat!
• They have a number of other resources, coloring sheets, flash cards and puzzles are also available on the site (I have not tried these).
• The program starts with the alphabet recognition and goes all the way to 2/3rd grade levels with advanced lessons in punctuation, exceptions to phonics rules, and complicated word blends like “knight” or “starve”

Downsides of the Progressive Phonics Program:

• The books print out in full sheets, if you want them to be books you’ll have to cut and paste a bunch.
• You have to print them yourself  (we ran out of toner – urgh) or look at the computer monitor the whole time.  I can see how purchasing the whole kit ready-made could be convenient.
• The sentences provided with each word family are pretty brief.  My kiddo memorized them with only a few repetitions so we had to rewrite the sentences to encourage real reading and not “reading” from memory.

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We will be incorporating the Progressive Phonics Reading program into our family’s learning-to-read experience with some adaptations.