Are you struggling to find a program to teach your little one to read? These phonics and grammar programs that we have had first hand knowledge of, will you to teach your children with confidence and leave nothing to guess work. After the phonics and spelling are in place, there are some really gentle and fun was to learn grammar. These two programs are reviewed for you here as well. If your children are younger than 6 years old, I suggest that you take a look at my Preschool Curriculum Page.

The Three R’s by Ruth Beechick

This booklet I would describe as indispensable in your homeschool if you have preschoolers of any age and children up to Grade 3. You can get them individually as well but I prefer the booklest which comes with a hundres's chart. Titles are:

A Strong Start in Language,

An Easy Start in Arithmetic,

A Home Start in Reading.

What home educators like most about these books is that they are not a work text for your child but rather written in Ruth Beechick’s mentoring style to teach the mom how to help her child naturally acquire a good foundation for reading, writing and arithmetic.

Ready...Set...Go for the Code!

This is a series of three workbooks for your young child to work through with you to teach them the name and sound of each letter. It starts with the vowel sounds and follows onto the consonants. I would advise to a parent who is not confident with teaching their child the phonetic sounds but with a little bit of asking around, you will find that it is a simple process. Some little ones want to feel like they are doing “school” like their older siblings, and in that situation, these books are simple enough not to be a burden to a busy mom, or to put unnecessary strain on young eyes.
Get Ready for the Code, Book A
Get Set for the Code, Book B
Go for the Code, Book C

Explode the Code

Following on from the above three books, Explode the Code has 6 books in the series. Each book focuses on specific rules related to the phonetic system of reading. Some of the sentences in the choices are complete nonsense and this has caused some frustration for one of my children, but again, they do the job and are easy to use with lots of white space to make it gentle on young eyes.

Explode the Code, Book 1
Explode the Code, Book 2
Explode the Code, Book 3
Explode the Code, Book 4
Explode the Code, Book 5
Explode the Code, Book 6

Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons
Creative parents hate this book but it has to be one of the most user friendly phonics and grammar programs that I have come across. There are no bells and whistles in this program like song tapes and wall friezes and flash cards. It is one large format book that teaches your child from sounds up to blends, diagraphs and correct letter formation. It is designed to take children who have no knowledge of the alphabet (as well as parents who have no idea how to teach their child to read) from the basic letter sounds, finishing after 100 lessons reading at Grade 3 level. The stories are free from the silly “The fat cat sat on the rat with a hat” story lines that so many early reading programs are full of.

If you are South African, rather buy it through Kalahari.net

Learning Language Arts Through Literature (LLATL) is another very popular homeschool phonics and grammar program focussing on all processes of gaining language arts. Designed specifically for the homeschool by homeschooling parents. LLATL uses popular children's story books to teach reading and grammar. The first books used are lovely picture storybooks, moving on to more advanced chapter books. LLATL covers grades K through to highschool.

Teach a Child to Read With Children's Books: Combining Story Reading, Phonics, and Writing to Promote Reading Success Recently reviewed by Ruth Beechick in a homeschool magazine, this parent guide caught my eye. She speaks so highly of the method that Thogmartin uses to teach children to read with quality popular children's picture storybooks. She says:"This wonderful book by Mark Thogmartin explains a top down system in which the child begins reading real books. They are more interesting than workbooks and certainly more interesting than phonics drill." She says later that there are so many ideas for a parent to use to engender a love for reading as well as an appendix listing the many children's books found in libraries that suit his approach. I think this is a winner!

Sequential Spelling is a highly rated program that teaches word families through auditory (hearing the word), visual (seeing the correct word), kinesthetic (tracing the correct word) and oral (saying the word) channels. Children are allowed to have to the freedom to guess and learn from their mistakes, as tests are seen as opportunities to learn from student self-corrected mistakes, rather than a method of evaluation. By teaching words in word families, students will be learning and using vocabulary not normally learned until introduced in much later grades, giving them a head-start in much of their reading.

Sequential Spelling 1 Sequential Spelling 2
Sequential Spelling 3 Sequential Spelling 4
Sequential Spelling 5 Sequential Spelling 6 Sequential Spelling 7

Grammar Songs, Cassette & Book
This is a great workbook and CD pack that helps to cement grammar rules. It will come in handy for those moms who have auditory learners. It si also great because if you are like me and have lots of different ages and grades in your homeschool, you can set one up to listen to this so that you are free to carry on with another of your children.

Simply Grammar: An Illustrated Primer
Simply Grammar is a book containing the original grammar lessons that Charlotte Mason wrote for her students. The lessons have been modernized and updated by Karen Andreola into a beautiful large format book with gorgeous illustrations. It is not a consumable book – that is, your purchase is once off for all your children. It is designed for use with children from Grade 3 up and will serve as a reference book for highschool students. We found that we got halfway through the book, but had to put it aside for a year as we did not need the second half of the book then.

Basic Winston Grammar Set
By Precious Memories Ed.

Teaching your kids the "nuts and bolts" of English grammar is crucial to their future success--- not only in writing and reading English, but also in learning foreign languages. This comprehensive kit includes a student workbook with work sheets 1--30, quizzes, and a posttest; a complete teacher's manual (with answer keys); and color-coded "parts of speech" cards for your 9- to 13-year-olds. Also includes a handy vinyl storage case. Softcovers, from Precious Memories.

Other articles you may be interested in are:
Language Arts the Charlotte Mason way
Poetry Book Reviews
Living Book Reviews

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