What is a good phonics program.

Question

what do you think about zoophonics...jolly phonics...letterland...the lsits goes on. which is a good program to adopt.

Answer 1

I agree with curiousp. I think a formal phonics program with the preschool and younger age groups is not really needed. Read books and emphasize the phonics at times while reading. This is a time when children should be discovering how much fun stories are and that words are the heart of it all.  

Answer 2

I was excited at first when my son's preschool incorporated the zoophonics.  It seemed like a neat idea.  But once I actually saw the program, there were some things that took away from actually learning to read.  Part of it is the way it was implemented.

Having an action and a visual with the word allows kinesthetic and visual children an opportunity for easier learning.  However, as an adult...I had trouble figuring out what animal it was...and it made the actual black-line letter obscure enough that I didn't know what letter was.  I found that there were very similar animals...or some that we definately were not familiar with etc.  One thing I noticed was that when the children "sounded" out the word... they did each sound and it's action but it broke it up so much ...and the focus was on the action... and the children had difficulty blending the letters together to make the word.  I decided that I preferred teaching the children a letter...and yes, I can use some sort of action...but the object that I connected with it was familiar and NEXT to or BELOW the actual letter instead of on top of the letter.

I don't know much about the other phonics program but I do want to ask you... is it NECESSARY to buy a program...or can you just create your own?

I like the order in which the sounds and letters are taught in the book Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy lesson by Siegfried Engelmann...they also incorporate blends...focus on the sounds more than the letter names.  If this is interesting to you...I can send you the order in which the sounds are taught.  I used this book with my eldest son to try it out before recommending it to my homeschooling sister.  I definately recommend it.  I will be using it as a guideline for my next year's program as a daily "group" lesson.  

Answer 3

Phonics outside of a meaningful context are not a great way to teach or learn.  I don't know anything about Zoophonics, but I do know that JollyPhonics and Letterland take phonetic sounds entirely out of their context.  You'd be better off to expose your child/students to a wide range of quality literature, both at their level and slightly above, and talk about the phonics within the structure of the story/book.

Answer 4

This program has worked wonders for several of my friends' children. It is taught by a 5 year old!