As we plow into the start of the new school year here, a number of you moms are beginning the reading process with one child or another. Feel free to forward this protocol on to other overwhelmed moms who would appreciate knowing how to launch their children into reading faster than normal.
Remember that you can teach a child to read any number of ways, but the process described here will get you there sooner.
You will need three things:
1) Our Fast Phonics course,
2) Alpha-Phonics by Samuel Blumenfeld (far better than 100 Easy Lessons and less expensive than scores of inferior phonics programs that cost an arm and a leg and that sell because of their bells and whistles), and
3) ACE's first-grade word building and math (12 paces of each).
You may skip ACE's kindergarten program entirely (it was designed for use in a classroom and is bunglesome and tedious) and not order ACE's entire first grade program at this time. Only purchase the First Grade Word Building and First Grade Math (12 pace booklets for each). Finish those first and then go back and order the rest of the first grade paces.
Steps to success:
Work your way through Fast Phonics and conquer ever step of it first. Do not move beyond this step until the child can do them backwards and forwards and upside down. This gives you faster overall delivery on the entire "word attack" business later, because the child is not endlessly halting and tripping over this fundamental stage; they know it, cold.
Then begin Alpha-Phonics (if you want one that costs less, look for a used on Affordabook.com or Abebooks.com). Refrain from teaching any long vowel sounds, or any alphabet names, until after lesson 15; don't go there yet. After lesson 15 it is okay to teach the other things. And the easiest way to do that is to let ACE Word Building do that for you.
Before you begin using ACE’s word building paces, you (the mom) go through all 12 paces and put a post-it note (i.e. red flag) to cover any page having anything to do with a long vowel sound. After you finish using all 12 Word Building paces in this limited way (doing only the short vowel sound pages), go back through them and do all of the pages that you red-flagged. By then you will be past lesson 15 in Alpha-Phonics and the remainder of your phonics tasks will be learned easily, step by step, built on this super-strong foundation.
So, in summary you can use ACE’s Word Building paces simultaneously with lessons 1-15 of Alpha-Phonics—by eliminating all the long vowel pages that you red-flag. But after lesson 15 of Alpha-Phonics you may go back to the beginning of ACE’s Word Building paces and do all of those pages as well. Continue with both Alpha-Phonics and the Word Building paces until you finish both.
ACE's math:
Full steam ahead—no prior prep needed. It'll do a great job for you. You can begin this simultaneously with our Phonics Sound Visuals packet—teaching reading and math right away, together, from the "get-go". If your child loves learning you can even do two sessions a day. Remember that teaching in short spurts is the key to early learning; always quit before the child wants to quit. You can always do another session later in the day, if the child is still eager.
General overview:
Here is the winning theory one more time: ACE will teach your children for you, and it will do it for you more easily than any other curriculum on the planet. On top of that you can waltz into your children’s academic world by teaching from any of your own passions at any time and in any way you so choose, on ideal days. On less than ideal days, however (when you don't have the energy or time—both are in short supply for typical moms), when you might be consumed with helping a sick child or prepping for company or simply getting dinner on the table and the laundry done in an orderly manner, instead of living in chaos, you want the children plowing ahead with self-discipline (“We do this every morning, whether mama is occupied with something else or not”). ACE will educate your children beautifully, but the more important thing is that ACE will train their character in subtle moral nooks and crannies all through the years—which is, after all, the grand prize for a Christian family :). Further, if you'll read Arthur Maxwell's 10-volume Bible Story and 5-volume Bedtime Stories in the evenings, that will totally help to propel your child over into the Heavenly Father’s forever kingdom. These choice pieces of early literature shape the home like no other.
